Maritime Security in East and Southeast Asia - Political Challenges in Asian Waters

MARITIME SECURITY
IN EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

POLITICAL CHALLENGES IN ASIAN WATERS
EDITED BY NICHOLAS TARLING AND XIN CHEN

Maritime Security in East and Southeast Asia
Nicholas Tarling • Xin Chen
Editors
Maritime Security in
East and Southeast
Asia
Political Challenges in Asian Waters
Editors
Nicholas Tarling Xin Chen
New Zealand Asia Institute New Zealand Asia Institute
University of Auckland University of Auckland
Auckland, New Zealand Auckland, New Zealand
ISBN 978-981-10-2587-7 ISBN 978-981-10-2588-4 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-2588-4
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Acknowledgements
The editors of this book would like to express their gratitude and apprecia-
tion to New Zealand Asia Institute at the University of Auckland, whose
financial and institutional support made the project possible. They would
also like to thank Professor Yongjin Zhang at the University of Bristol
and Professor James Chin at the University of Tasmania for their scholarly
assistance and encouragement. The editors would especially like to thank
all the contributors to this book for their hard work, fresh ideas, in-depth
analysis, and patience during the project.
v
Contents
1 Introduction1
Xin Chen and Nicholas Tarling
2 Maritime Security and Piracy7

Nicholas Tarling
3 The Straits of Malacca: Malaysia’s Threat Perception

and Strategy for Maritime Security23
K.S. Balakrishnan and Helena Varkkey
4 Securitising Piracy and Maritime Terrorism along the

Malacca and Singapore Straits: Singapore and the
Importance of Facilitating Factors43
Mark David Chong
5 The Challenges of Maritime Security Cooperation in the

Straits of Malacca: Another Singapore Perspective85
Ke Xu
vii
viii Contents
6 The Seas of Our Insecurity: Ordinary versus State

Discourses on Maritime and Human Security in the
Philippines107
Antonio P. Contreras
7 Japan’s Maritime Security: Continuity and Post-Cold War

Evolution125
Yoichiro Sato
8 Charting Thailand’s Maritime Security Policies from 1932

to 2012: A Liberal International Relations Perspective145
Mark David Chong and Surin Maisrikrod
9 Sea Power and Maritime Disputes: China’s

Internal Discourses207
Xin Chen
Index251
List of Contributors
K.S. Balakrishnan Department of International and Strategic Studies, University

of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Xin Chen New Zealand Asia Institute, University of Auckland, Auckland, New
Zealand
Mark David Chong College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook
University, Townsville, QLD, Australia
Antonio P. Contreras Political Science Department, De La Salle University,
Manila, Philippines
Surin Maisrikrod College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook
University, Townsville, QLD, Australia
Walailak University, Thai Buri, Tha Sala District, Thailand
Yoichiro Sato College of Asia Pacific Studies, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University,
Beppu, Japan
Nicholas Tarling New Zealand Asia Institute, University of Auckland, Auckland,
New Zealand
Helena Varkkey Department of International and Strategic Studies, University of
Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Ke Xu School of International Relations/Research School for Southeast Asian
Studies, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
ix
List of Figures
Fig. 4.1 STRAITREP operational map of the Malacca Straits 47

Fig. 4.2 STRAITREP operational map of the Singapore Straits 48
Fig. 8.1 Thailand 148
xi
List of Tables
Table 4.1 Actual and attempted piratical attacks along the Malacca and
Singapore Straits from January 1, 1999 to December 31, 2012 60
Table 8.1 Major weapons systems in selected Asian states (circa 2012) 155
Table 8.2 Piratical attacks (actual and attempts) from 1995 to 1999 158
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Xin Chen and Nicholas Tarling
Since 2011, rising tensions in the East and South China Seas have been
garnering diplomatic and media attention in and outside the region. East
Asian maritime borders, whether fixed during colonial eras or the Cold
War, have never been immutable. Yet with the rival claimant countries
rapidly improving their naval and coast guard capabilities and with surg-
ing nationalism in their domestic politics, there are increasing discussions
about the risk that maritime disputes will lead to military clashes in the
Asian waters. Theories and suppositions also abound from geo-political
analysts and netizens on the strategic intentions of the contending coun-
tries involved and the restructuring of their intra- and extra-regional
alliances.
Buried beneath the avalanche of rhetoric on the inter-state tensions
in the Asian maritime domain, however, are non-state security con-
cerns there and regional collaborative attempts to address them. Also
under-
represented in the ongoing maritime security deliberations are
domestic debates within the claimant countries on “threats” and “safety”,
especially ordinary, sea-oriented people’s perceptions and daily concerns.
X. Chen (*) • N. Tarling

New Zealand Asia Institute, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
© The Author(s) 2017 1

N. Tarling, X. Chen (eds.), Maritime Security in East and
Southeast Asia, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-2588-4_1
2 X. CHEN AND N. TARLING
Yet these missing elements are not only very much relevant to maritime
security in Asia, but may very well prove essential to deciphering the policy
positions and enforcement actions of the key claimant countries and pro-
jecting the evolution of dispute management, diplomatic accommodation,
and joint resource development attempts in the East and South China
Seas.
Asia is home to some of the world’s most strategic Sea Lanes of
Communications. The Malacca and Singapore Straits, for example, is
arguably the busiest international waterway, with more than one-third of
the global trade1 and half of the world’s energy traversing it annually.2
Dotting Asia’s busy sea lanes are ports handling some of the world’s high-
est volumes of container traffic. All this has rendered the region a major
hub in the international network of sea transport. The safe and uninter-
rupted flow of shipping in the Asian waters has thus become an essen-
tial condition in recent years for the economic well-being of the region
and the world. Yet featuring narrow, shallow waterways with countless
“chokepoints”, major arteries of maritime communication in the region,
particularly the Malacca and Singapore Straits, are believed to be more
vulnerable to maritime terrorism than traditional state-to-state threats or
conflicts. Indeed, piracy in Southeast Asia is reported to be rapidly acceler-
ating, featuring a 700% increase of attacks and attempted attacks between
2008 and 2013.3
The Asian waters have long been a haunt of pirates. Whether those
whom the colonial powers termed “pirates” should rightly be so consid-
ered was a matter of controversy at the time and has been since. But man-
aging piracy-related security problems in the Asian waters was certainly
and has continued to be a challenge. The pull factors into “piracy” remain
arguably as pertinent today as they were during colonial and pre-colonial
times for many economically marginalised fishermen trapped in an ever
more difficult struggle for survival.4 Only, pirates today are arguably
1
Yves Bakker, “The question of the strait of Malacca,” UN Economic and Social Council
Forum, June 5, 2014.
2
Arno Maierbrugger, “Escalating South China Sea conflict could disrupt oil and gas
trade,” Gulf Times, May 10, 2014, p. B12.
3
Patrick Winn, “Strait of Malacca Is World’s New Piracy Hotspot,” NBC News, June 5,
2014 (accessible at http://www.nbcnews.com/#/news/world/strait-malacca-worlds-new-
piracy-hotspot-n63576).
4
Tom Gunnar Hoogervorst, “Ethnicity and aquatic lifestyles: exploring Southeast Asia’s
past and present seascapes,” Water History, Iss. 4, 2012, p. 262.
INTRODUCTION 3
better organised, more violent and less hesitant to launch kidnap-for-

ransom strikes than in the past.
Since piracy in Asia consists primarily of armed robbery, it is typically
considered the state’s responsibility to enforce counter measures. Maritime
offences, meanwhile, occur in both domestic and international cargo traf-
fic and may claim lives of different nationalities, disrupt livelihoods of
other peoples, and upset the world economy. Piracy and sea robbery are
thus also held by many in Asia as transnational crimes. For them, effective
responses can be supported only by regional or multilateral determination
and cooperation. This is especially true in the case of the densely traf-
ficked Singapore and Malacca Straits and the surrounding waters, as their
security and environmental protection is costly financially and demanding
technologically. Yet attractive and logical as maritime security collabora-
tion may sound, its enactment has not appeared a straightforward mat-
ter for the littoral countries along this international transportation artery.
Rather, collective security initiative proposals often find those countries
grappling with the challenge of diplomatic adaptations among their respec-
tive national interests and strategic calculus. They also have increasingly to
walk a fine line between engaging keen Asian and extra-regional powers in
maritime security operations in the Straits, but not internationalising the
strategic waterways in their maritime territories.
At a more fundamental level, maritime security policies, strategies and
operations are dictated by perceptions of threat as much as the threat
itself. Different players, be they states, communities, or individuals, are
faced with different political, socio-economic, and historical realities.
Different realities in turn breed or signify different maritime safety con-
cerns, sundry frames of “danger” references, varied security enforcement
priorities, and mixed responses to and expectations of cooperation initia-
tives and arrangements. Furthermore, in the deliberation over maritime
jurisdictional rights, dispute resolutions, and multilateral anti-piracy/
terrorism mechanisms in Asia, it is the government, not the “country”
as a whole that is engaged in various negotiation processes. Government
officials involved invariably have to respond to concerns arising from their
constituencies at home. Accordingly, their definitions of threats and inter-
pretations of regional and international events are mediated by domestic
political dynamics and social settings. While the state may still be stronger
than society in many countries involved in Asian maritime affairs, political
elites there are not necessarily insulated from domestic society. To con-
solidate their places in both international and domestic affairs, they often
4 X. CHEN AND N. TARLING
have to sort through massive political, ideological, economic, social, eth-

nic and even religious issues, pressures and tensions on the home front to
identify and prioritise sources of “threats” to the security of their regime
and the stability of the state. Given the vast array of systemic and social
transformations underway in many of these countries, the configuration
and reconfiguration of power and interest in the national context have a
serious impact on the positions and narratives of the relevant governments
on issues related to maritime “threats”, territorial disputes, conflict resolu-
tion, and security cooperation in Asia.
The purpose of this volume is thus to investigate the nature of threats
facing, or perceived as facing, some of the key players involved in Asian
maritime politics, and their responses to domestic and regional security
challenges in the Asian waters. These case studies on Malaysia, Singapore,
the Philippines, Thailand, Japan, China, and Southeast Asia as a whole are
expected to show that “threat” and “security” should not be understood
as one universal condition, but as a highly contested signifier invoking
many diverse specifications of “danger”. Focusing on domestic definitions
of threats and conceptualisation of security, these studies also attempt, in
various degrees, to demonstrate that in “speaking security”, or threats,
some voices in a given political community are empowered and others
marginalised.5
In his chapter, Nicholas Tarling presents a historical review of the appli-
cation of the word “piracy” in maritime Southeast Asia. Focusing on its
varied discursive contexts, from colonial to sovereign and regional, and
its inferential variants or ambiguities, Tarling’s discussion preludes and
lays the foundation for the following country-based studies on contempo-
rary debates about “threats” and “security”. K S Balakrishnan and Helena
Varkkey examine how Malaysia adapts to the constant challenge of striking
a balance between the Malacca Straits as territorial waters and as an inter-
national waterway; between its national strategic concerns and other play-
ers’ interests and calculations; and between technical and financial needs
for regional and international cooperation on the security in the Straits and
its apprehension over the potential of “internationalisation” of the Straits.
Mark David Chong applies the Copenhagen School approach to
Security Studies in his analysis of Singapore’s efforts to create a politi-
cal climate conducive to substantive joint endeavours with Indonesia and
5
Matt McDonald, “Securitization and the Construction of Security”, European Journal of
International Relations, 14 (4), December 2008, p. 580.
INTRODUCTION 5
Malaysia through securitising piracy and maritime terrorism along the

Malacca Straits. Ke Xu’s chapter meanwhile investigates Singapore’s per-
ception of maritime security and policy deliberations on challenges and
remedies in maritime security cooperation in Asia. Antonio P. Contreras
points out in his chapter that Philippines’ dominant discourse on maritime
security, while legitimate particularly in the ongoing territorial disputes
in the South China Sea, is far removed from the concerns of ordinary
Filipinos living near the waters and depending on them for their liveli-
hoods. Focusing on threats in the form of reduced economic opportu-
nities brought upon ordinary people by natural and man-made forces
beyond their control, Contreras inquires into conflicting conceptualisa-
tions of maritime security and their reconciliation according to the tenets
of human security that are authentic to the Philippine context.
Yoichiro Sato examines Japan’s maritime strategies during and after the
Cold War, in particular its efforts to build layers of multilateral security
mechanisms for its manifold interests and concerns amidst the changing
power configuration in East Asia. The chapter by Mark David Chong and
Surin Maisrikrod details how Thailand’s maritime security policies are for-
mulated not so much by the presence or absence of imminent or future
threats to national security, but rather on the outcome of the internecine
conflict between sub-governmental entities like the army and the navy.
Taking a liberal international relations approach, Chong and Maisrikrod
uncover the strong domestic undercurrents and dynamism involved in
the Royal Thai Navy’s continued existential fight to stay even relevant
in national security policy deliberations. Xin Chen’s chapter meticulously
investigates China’s domestic debates on maritime security and maps out
the discursive landscape along the Chinese-adapted Hobbesian-Lockean-
Kantian continuum. Her study indicates that in the absence of a discur-
sive consensus on “security” and “threats”, China will not be able in the
foreseeable future to come up with a convincing explanation as to how its
military build-up is in keeping with its “peaceful” aspiration. As a result,
China and its official policies are not yet able to escape the dilemma of
“threat to China” and “China threat” in addressing its maritime security
concerns in Asia and beyond.
CHAPTER 2
Maritime Security and Piracy
Nicholas Tarling
In Alexander McCall Smith’s novel, Love in Scotland, Domenica

Macdonald, an anthropologist, goes off to the Straits of Melaka to study
the ways of life of the pirates. “I spent a lot of time on their matrilineal
succession patterns. …And I also unearthed some rather interesting infor-
mation about domestic economy matters. Who does the shopping and
matters like that.” At the end of her stay she followed the pirates “all the
way to a little town down the coast. They tied up outside a warehouse,
a sort of godown, as they call them out there.” She crept up to the jetty
and found a small window she could look through. “It was a pirate CD
factory.…That’s what they did, these pirates of mine. They made pirate
CDs.” She had imagined “that they were still holding up ships and so on.
But they’ve adapted really well to the new global economy.”1
Currently two kinds of international action are indeed commonly
given the label “piracy”. Neither will apply, I hope, either to this paper
or its presenter. One includes—in a way perhaps typical of our consumer
society—“product piracy”. It extends not only to CDs but to luggage,
1
Alexander McCall Smith, Love in Scotland (London: Abacus, 2007), pp. 344–6.
N. Tarling (*)

8 N. TARLING
even to chocolates. Ferrero Rocher are proceeding against Montresor, the

chocolate arm of Liangfeng, for making look-alikes, maybe taste-alikes.2
It also includes, more generally, the purloining of intellectual property.
That would certainly apply to this paper if it were published, and then
re-published, in breach of copyright. Or if the machine that copied it, or
the disc on which it was copied, were manufactured in breach of patent
or trademark. To such activities we have extended the use of the word
“piracy”.
That, however, is not a novelty. The usage goes back to the eigh-
teenth century. It was very much in evidence in the nineteenth century,
as were the practices it labelled. Authors and composers, for example,
had great difficulty in securing adequate copyright protection. Gilbert
and Sullivan found their operettas “pirated” in the USA because of its
weak copyright laws. It was rather ironic that they used the premiere of
The Pirates of Penzance to fight for protection, going over to the USA
themselves for it in 1879, while also organising a more or less simultane-
ous private British premiere in a small theatre in Paignton in order to
assert the British copyright.3 Another great composer, Sir Edward Elgar,
was still complaining twenty years later. “A pirate may photographically
[reproduce] the score of an important work which has taken perhaps
a couple of years to write and sell it at an absurd price, and there is no
practical remedy.”4
“[T]here be land rats and water rats, water thieves and land thieves,
I mean pirates”, says Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. Piracy was then
salt-water theft. Though the figurative extension became common in the
eighteenth century, Shakespeare’s plays were of course subjected to unau-
thorised copying in his own times: people sat in the audience writing them
down, just as they might in the later twentieth century have been holding
a surreptitious microphone to record Maria Callas. One thing the two
usages have in common: they are both robberies, though one is more
likely to be violent than the other. Calling the robbers of intellectual prop-
erty “pirates” perhaps makes them seem more disreputable. Maybe it also
suggests the relative helplessness of their victims and the lack of interna-
tional protection.
New Zealand Herald, January 11, 2007.

2
Tony Joseph, The D’Oyly Carte Opera Company 1875–1982 (Bristol: Bunthorne Books,
3
1994), pp. 100–02.

4
q. J.N. Moore, Edward Elgar. A Creative Life (Oxford UP, 1984), p. 437.
MARITIME SECURITY AND PIRACY 9
There is another common point to make. “Piracy” was not applied to

every kind of attack or robbery at sea, any more than it was or is it applied
to every kind of copying, reprinting or reproduction. It applied to what
was “unauthorised”. Essential to the Western concept of piracy was that
it was the act of a private person without authorisation. That implied the
existence of an authority, which might grant authorisation or from which
it might be secured. With the emergence of the Western state system, that
authority was the state, which sought to monopolise force. It was the state
that made laws and enforced them. But in Shakespeare’s day it was becom-
ing more than ever clear that Europe was becoming a collection or system
of states, more or less equal in sovereignty, though not in power, and that
idea was to be enshrined in the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, at the end
of the 30 years of war that began soon after Shakespeare died. How was
authority then to be exercised?
The developing system of international law regarded pirates as the
common enemies of mankind. Every state had the right and indeed the
obligation to suppress them with such maritime and legal force as it could
deploy. But a state could authorise a maritime attack by private persons.
It could licence “privateering”, that is give private persons a letter of
marque authorising them to use ships they owned and officered against
a hostile nation and especially its merchant ships. This was indeed what
Shakespeare’s England did: Elizabeth I stopped short of declaring war on
Philip II. Spain was a major power and England was not. But she risked
privateering, doing all by halves, as Walter Raleigh complained.5 The prac-
tice continued into the seventeenth century and beyond, being ruled out
of international law only in the 1850s.6 The extent to which we should
consider current mixes of the public and the private—the use of contrac-
tors, for example, in which the state franchises its monopoly of force—a
recrudescence of those earlier ventures might be worth discussing. In both
there are elements of anomaly and irresponsibility at odds with regularis-
ing the relations among states.
In war itself, duly declared, attack and robbery were justified and autho-
rised as state acts of war and done by the navy, including its “men-of-war”.
In the nineteenth century, when the new state system was established
5
R.B. Wernham, “Elizabethan War Aims and Strategy,” in S.T. Bindoff et al., Elizabethan
Government and Society (London: Athlone, 1961), p. 340.
6
Adam J. Young, Contemporary Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia (Leiden: IIAS;
Singapore: ISEAS, 2007), p. 8.
10 N. TARLING
more firmly in the West (and England was no longer a minor power),
and semi-regular privateering was eliminated, international law might still
accept, at least outside Europe, that state authorisation would exempt a
sea robber from the description of “pirate”. He (or she) was not a “mere”
robber. What would then become important would be to bring the state
into line, so that attack and robbery became acceptable only as acts of war
duly declared.
The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UBCLOS)
emphasises the “private” motivation of piracy. It consists, says article 101,
of “any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation,
committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship
or a private aircraft, and directed: (i) on the high seas, against another ship
or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft;
(ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the juris-
diction of any State”. It also includes any act of voluntary participation in
such action and any inciting or facilitating of such action. The convention
might be seen as marking the universal acceptance of what had emerged
within the European state system over the previous centuries.
The application of the word piracy, and the suppression of what the
word covered, had indeed been associated with the globalisation of the
nineteenth century, which involved, along with a vast expansion of inter-
national trade, a proliferation of Western concepts of international law and
statehood, Western power and sometimes Western rule, in other parts of
the world.
That could not but be both conflictual and controversial: conflictual
so far as relations with states not, no longer or never within the Western
system were concerned; controversial so far as the application of these
concepts and the use of their power became the subjects of policy debate
within Western countries themselves. Even if there had been no disposi-
tion to extend the range of the term “piracy”—and there clearly was—its
application would still have involved dispute, whether at sea or in court,
in naval or parliamentary engagement. It is not surprising that the subject
has been the subject of historiographical debate, too; nor that the debate
in some sense anticipated the impact of deconstructionism. That has, per-
haps, been especially the case in respect of Southeast Asia.
James Warren, an authority on the raiding of the Iranun and Balangingi
in the maritime region of Southeast Asia in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, points out that it was “not simply robbery or ban-
ditry made singular by the fact that incidents occurred only on the water”.
The notion that it was “for private gain” “caused problems with respect to
the Iranun and Balangingi because sometimes the identity of the attackers
was in doubt and their motives unclear. While it is apparent that Iranun
maritime raiding was a real crime with real victims—robbery and violence
certainly existed—a more practical definition that also takes into consider-
ation political, economic or religiously inspired motives must be sought.”7
The geographical features of maritime region were certainly conducive
to robbery at sea. They included: a major international sea route, travers-
ing quite narrow straits; entrepots, in which the trade within the region
met the trade outside it; long coastlines, many opportunities for conceal-
ment in jungle-covered inlets and estuaries, and for the establishment of
protected strongholds; difficulty in establishing or sustaining any kind of
regular control over such areas. Over the centuries there were changes.
The entrepots moved from one part of the Straits to another. What was
traded changed, and so did the ships that carried it. Some factors were
nevertheless constant and are still relevant. In some respects opportunity
has narrowed, in others expanded. There is still plenty of piracy, even
though the fictional Domenica failed to find it—the real-life Eric Frécon
has been more successful8—and while attacks on major ships make the
news, smaller vessels are in fact much more at risk. “The “easy” targets,
such as fisher folk and local traders, often bear the brunt of attacks at sea,
rather than the more highly publicized international shipping victims.”9
If geographical factors in the sub-region were conducive to robbery
at sea, so, too, it may be argued, were its socio-political features. Only
one part of the island world, east and central Java, was then susceptible of
large-scale settlement, based on wet-rice agriculture, and it was only there
that more or less established semi-bureaucratic states emerged. Elsewhere
the islands were generally thinly populated, and the political power of
states depended on their control of river access to the interior. Empires
were assemblages of them. The rulers were thalassocrats.
Naturally they were often in contention with one another, and their
wars were naturally maritime wars. They would aim to divert the trade of
7
James F. Warren, Iranun and Balangingi: globalization, maritime raiding and the birth
of ethnicity (Singapore UP, 2002), pp. 2–3.
8
“Piracy and armed robbery at sea along the Malacca Straits: Initial impressions from
Fieldwork in the Riau Islands,” in Graham Gerard Ong-Webb, ed., Piracy, Maritime
Terrorism and Securing the Malacca Straits (Singapore: ISEAS; Leiden: IIAS, 2006),
pp. 68–83.
9
Young, p. 65.
12 N. TARLING
a rival to their port or compel the centralisation of trade on their entrepot.

Robbery at sea was a means of war and of revolution, of political struggle,
of enforcement. It was also a means of accumulating wealth, acquiring
human as well as non-human resources: slaves were valuable in a thinly
populated region and built your following. For young aristocrats it was
indeed a kind of adventure for you and your followers, success in which
gained mana and realised ambitions. The anak raja, Barbara Andaya tells
us, were an endemic problem in the Straits in the eighteenth century, and
not merely, as Raffles was to argue, because of Dutch monopoly-seeking.
Dynastic and inter-state disputes “led to the presence of numbers of unat-
tached anak raja who became pirates to augment a meagre income”.10
“Within the Malay world it was quite common for princes, or anak raja,
to leave a polity in search of greater opportunities and riches”, writes Tim
Barnard. “This was often due to their precarious position in society. Since
most rulers had numerous wives and mistresses, the number of royal sons
could be quite high. Many of these anak raja would attach themselves
to a high-ranking noble in their own court, or even a neighbouring one,
while those with greater ambitions would often assemble fleets of raiding
vessels, which would usually prey upon enemies of the polity.” That was
common practice, raised in Siak, the east Sumatran state of which Barnard
writes, to “new heights”. The anak raja were not simply seeking their
fortune. They were gathering followers and cultivating daulat to enhance
their chances in Siak.11 One of the most successful allied with the Iranun
from the east. That “introduced new levels of violence and ferocity to the
practice of raiding, which had long been accepted as a legitimate element
in Malay statecraft as rulers sought to eliminate rivals and force passing
ships to enter their ports”.12
That did not mean that such states could be regarded, even by
European traders or empire-builders or historians, as merely “piratical”,
nor that, as some European observers said, Malays were born pirates. That
would delegitimise activities that in Western states had been and were
legitimated in other ways. They had after all gone to war with one another,
and still did so, though generally now proceeding in a more formal man-
ner so far as start and conclusion and even conduct were concerned. They
10
B.W. Andaya, Perak, the Abode of Grace (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford UP, 1979), p. 59.
11
Timothy Barnard, Multiple centres of authority: society and environment in Siak and east-
ern Sumatra, 1674–1827 (Leiden: KITLV, 2003), p. 128.
12
Ibid., p. 154.
“licensed” privateers over whom they had little control, abandoning the
practice only in the nineteenth century. They raided for slaves until well
into that century. Their young bloods were allowed their excitement
before they settled down, even after the crusading phase was over. When
it came to applying the word “piracy”—with all its European or “oriental-
ist” overtones—two kinds of legitimation and delegitimation were in fact
at odds. They overlapped, but they were not coextensive. Trade was desir-
able and war permissible, they were agreed. On what grounds, with what
qualifications, under what circumstances, could trade be attacked? There
they might disagree.
It was not surprising that contemporaries differed, nor is it surprising
that historians have argued. In particular they differed and have argued
over piracy in maritime Southeast Asia. For many Westerners at the time
it was something that was indeed part of the Malay character: the Malays
were inveterate pirates, and the expansion of trade through the new
entrepot at Singapore was simply giving them new opportunities. It had
to be “put down”, and “order” brought to the maritime world so that
trade could flourish. Others, even at the time, took a more considered
attitude, a more “philosophical approach”, as Eric Tagliacozzo puts it.13
Piracy, they suggested, flourished because of the breakdown of order,
leaving its practice without the customary checks upon it. They agreed
that it had to be “put down”, but its suppression could involve the “res-
toration” of the Malay states as well as the deployment of European
force.
Historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries gener-
ally emphasised the former view. Their focus was on suppression rather
than explanation, and their story part of the bringing of a new colonial
or semi-colonial order. Those writing after the second world war, when
the world of empires was giving way to the world of states, adopted a dif-
ferent emphasis, even pre-Said. Among them, I was struck, in perusing
British records, by the attempts at explanation that could be found along-
side the accounts of suppression. Piracy in the Johore region, Admiral
Sir Edward Owen suggested, was “deeply rooted in the habits and the
cherished predilections of these people: they find their source in the war-
like habits of the numerous Petty Chieftains,…are fostered by the perpet-
ual changes to which these have been subjected in the breaking down of
13
Secret Trades, Porous Frontiers (New Haven and London: Yale UP, 2005), p. 109.
14 N. TARLING
larger Government”.14 Other historians, such as Ann Reber in her Cornell

Master’s thesis of 1966, thought that I had adopted the “decline theory”,
associated with Raffles’ programme of restoring a Malay world destroyed
by the intrusion of the Dutch. In The Sulu Zone, 1768–1898 (Singapore,
1981), James Warren argued that, far from declining, the Sulu sultanate
was prospering: its sponsorship of piracy and slave-raiding was explained
by the demands for labour imposed by the development of its trade with
China. My ideas indeed seemed to fit the pirates of the Melaka Straits and
the old Johore empire better than the pirates of the Sulu region, who
descended on the coasts of Sulawesi as well as Luzon and the Visayas.15
But I have not quite abandoned my view that the long-term interposition
of the Europeans, if not ensuring decline, in a sense prevented renewal.
Malay polities could not be reconstituted so as to provide the albeit unsta-
ble order of the pre-European period.
Contemporaries faced practical as well as theoretical problems. What
was piracy? How could you suppress it? Whatever view you might take
of the Malay “character” or whatever understanding you might have of
Malay history, you would be involved in applying European concepts,
European law and European power. If a suspected pirate were brought
before a court, it would be relevant to consider not only whether he had
committed robbery or depredation at sea, but also, if so, whether it was
done under the authority of a ruler who might be held responsible. In
1838, for example, British naval forces engaged with a fleet of Iranun
off Trengganu. About 90 were killed, it was estimated, and 30 tried.
They were convicted of piracy, but, the Governor reported in June, “no
sentence has yet been passed, the Court considering that though guilty
there is too much reason to apprehend that they were acting at least
with the connivance if not under the immediate orders and direction of
the Sultan of Sulu”.16 Such cases might lead to political and/or naval
action. But it would have been a naval action that would have brought
the accused before the court in the first place. Quite clearly, naval com-
manders often preferred rough justice to the uncertain outcome of a
legal case.
14
q. N. Tarling, Piracy and Politics in the Malay World (Melbourne: Cheshire, 1963),
p. 53.
15
David Henley, Fertility, food and fever: population, economy and environment in North
and central Sulawesi, 1600–1930 (Leiden: KITLV, 2005), p. 430.
16
q. Tarling, p. 150.
There were some constraints on them, however, found, for example,

in the instructions issued by the British Admiralty. They were intensified
in the 1840s partly because the suppression of pirates had become costly
for the British exchequer: the government, in order to encourage the sup-
pression of piracy in the Caribbean, had introduced the payment of head
money in 1825, the payment of a bounty to the officers and men involved
in killing or dispersing pirates. That had encouraged an expansive appli-
cation of the term both in maritime Southeast Asia and off the coast of
China, where piracy was stimulated by the disorder of the first Anglo-
China war and the Taiping rebellion.
Indeed, if controversy were almost built into even a modest application
of the term, it was expanded by the readiness with which the application
of the term could be expanded, and, as Alfred Rubin put it, “the legal
results of “piracy” purportedly derived from public international law were
applied to facts different from the facts to which the label “piracy” was
attached by public international lawyers”.17 The most controversial case in
the 1840s—contributing indeed to the head money crisis—was that of Sir
James Brooke. Establishing a government at Kuching, initially under the
sultan of Brunei, he qualified the neighbouring Skrang and Saribas Dayaks
as pirates, and secured the support of vessels of the Royal and Company’s
navies in suppressing them. But were they pirates? And had the naval
forces been acting within their instructions? Such questions arose not
merely because they were involved in claims for substantial sums of head
money, nor because Brooke had made enemies who were ready to attack
him, including his former agent, Henry Wise. They arose also because of
concerns about the definition of piracy and the use of British power. Had
the Sekrang and Saribas robbed at sea? Had they attacked British trade and
shipping? Or were they punished rather because of their threat to the raj
of Sarawak that Sir James was building? “Who are the real pirates in this
case?” demanded the Radical Joseph Hume.18 A commission of enquiry,
set up to resolve these issues, reported in 1855.
Maritime Southeast Asia witnessed other expansive applications of the
term, induced in part by the wish to deploy the power of Britain in an area
where its government had determined on a policy of avoiding territorial
expansion. In the still independent sultanate of Aceh, for example, the
17
Piracy, Paramountcy and Protectorates (Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit University Malaya,
1974), p. 35.
18
q. Tarling, p. 138.
16 N. TARLING
ruler’s attempt to centralise foreign commerce at Kuta Raja was opposed

both by local rulers and by foreign merchants, and sometimes described as
piracy.19 The term was also applied to Bugis attempts to control the trade
between the eastern Borneo states and Singapore. The growing trade of
Singapore indeed attracted what we might consider genuine piracy, but
the term could also be applied to other obstacles to foreign trade, legiti-
mate though they might be even in European terms.
Vietnamese traders were particularly exposed to attack in the early
days of Singapore. Piratical vessels based in Riau-Lingga, and later those
dispersed by the British attack on Galang in 1836, would descend upon
them, and they were as defenceless as the boat people a century and a half
later, over whose security rather less concern was expressed than over that
of oil-carriers and containers. In the interests of royal monopoly, Emperor
Minh-manh did not allow private “topes” to carry arms.
Vietnamese waters themselves had not been not strangers to piracy. The
waters round the Gulf of Tonkin and along the Vietnamese coasts, with
their shallow seas and numerous bays, were “ideal for piracy”, and the
Manchus’ insistence that foreign trade must focus on Canton provided the
same kind of invitation as the entrepot at Singapore was soon to offer. The
Tay-son regime of the late eighteenth century recruited pirates in their
naval struggle against the Nguyen, finding in them a means of control
and a source of wealth. The pirates for their part gained protection from
the attempts of the Manchu-Chinese authorities to suppress them. “The
Tonkinese mandarins helped them escape and then deceived the Chinese
with flattering words”, as a missionary wrote in 1797.20
When they began to incorporate Vietnam in their empire, the French
adopted a yet more extensive application of the term “piracy”. Attempting
to suppress opposition, both local and Chinese, in Tonkin, they spoke of
piracy on land.21 It was a misnomer that was nevertheless useful: piracy
was something that was without validity and could have no international
support and had to be put down. Exactly echoing Francis Garnier 70 years
19
Alfred P. Rubin, The International Personality of the Malay Peninsula (Kuala Lumpur:
Penerbit University Malaya, 1974), p. 161.
20
q. George E. Dutton, The Tay Son Uprising: society and rebellion in eighteenth-century
Vietnam (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006), p. 224. See also Dian H. Murray,
Pirates of the South China Coast, Stanford UP, 1987, pp. 35–40.
21
G. Taboulet, La geste francaise en Indochine (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1956),
pp. 795, 822.
later,22 they were to use the phrase “pirates and bandits” to describe the
Viet Minh in 1945.23
Extensions of the word have continued to be employed: like the word
“terror”, it has useful rhetorical overtones. The Soviet Union—a regime
always rather free with its use of words, if not in any other respect—criti-
cised China’s attack on Vietnam in 1979 as a “cynical and barbarous act
of international piracy”.24 Such extensions are, of course, not peculiar to
Southeast Asia. “Pirates”, we are told, live in abandoned gold mines in
South Africa, setting booby traps and bombs to keep police and legitimate
miners away.25
Brooke and naval commanders of his time would write of “nests” of
pirates26 as if they were rats rather than human beings. In accounts of
Western piracy there is sometimes a touch of romance, even of patriotism.
The element of anarchy in us may prompt the mythologising of maritime
Robin Hoods and Treasure Islands. In the age of privateering, the Dutch
might admire Piet Hein, and his memory could still be evoked by Dutch
nationalists of the late nineteenth century, for example in van Anrooij’s
symphonic rhapsody of 1900. Such sympathy was rarely if ever extended
to the Ilanun or the Skrang.
After the appearance in 1963 of Piracy and Politics in the Malay World,
the late George Kahin humorously toasted me at a post-seminar Cornell
dinner as the man who made piracy respectable. That was a cheerful exag-
geration of my intention. What I had sought to provide was a better expla-
nation of piracy and of what was called piracy in the Malay world in the
nineteenth century. Whatever sympathy one might extend to the pirates
could, moreover, hardly eliminate consideration of their victims, the
robbed and killed, the luckless slaves. Those who were liberated offered
graphic accounts of their experiences of which Warren has made excellent
use. Whether they were sufficient justification for the steps taken to put
piracy down may nevertheless be in question.
Extended applications of the term were designed further to legitimate
attempts to establish a new order in which trade could develop, if not
22
Ibid., p. 726.
23
N. Tarling, Imperialism in Southeast Asia (London and New York: Routledge, 2001),
p. 275.
24
q. King C. Chen, China’s War with Vietnam, 1979: issues, decisions and implications,
Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1986, p. 111.
25
New Zealand Herald, 13 December 2006.
26
E.g. Maitland in Tarling, Piracy, p. 155.
18 N. TARLING
colonial or imperial rule. The legitimation might be necessary in a domes-

tic constituency, showing the government at home or the electorate that
British power had been properly used. It might also be necessary in an
international constituency: pirates were the common enemies of mankind.
The former device did not always work, as the Brooke Commission of
Enquiry showed. Nor did the latter. Indeed, even if the application were
not forced and the pirates were genuine, states might still find it difficult
to collaborate against them. For whether or not piracy had political ori-
gins, its suppression could have political results.
The difficulty, of course, was evident if it were a question of collabora-
tion between a “native” power and a European. Their definitions of piracy
might differ, even if they agreed that it should be suppressed. Mutual
suspicion might deepen their difference. Was the ruler genuinely commit-
ted to cooperate against the pirates? Was he in fact willing even if able? So
the Europeans might wonder. And the ruler might wonder whether their
intervention against the pirates would help in preserving his realm or be a
first step toward a takeover.
The reasons why the colonial powers also found it difficult to cooper-
ate among themselves were less evident, though they were related. They
were committed to act against the common enemies of mankind, and
in general they were likely to be in substantial agreement on defining
them. But there were questions of jurisdiction and questions of sov-
ereignty, emphasised by the political implications of anti-piracy opera-
tions. Should foreign navies act only outside territorial waters? Surely
they could not attack “nests” in the territories claimed by other states.
Were there, however, cases in which, in pursuing pirates, they would
intentionally challenge the claims of other European states or seek to
pre-empt them?
The Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1824—a fundamental document, drawing
an imaginary line down the Straits of Melaka and Singapore between the
territories into which the Dutch and the British could intervene and those
in which they could not, and ultimately forming a division between Malaya
and Indonesia—contained an article (5) binding the two colonial powers
to cooperate against piracy. It was never really possible. The one attempt
to do so—the anti-piracy operations of 1836—showed why. British ships
under Henry Chads attacked a pirate “nest” in Galang (now a holiday
resort), which was claimed by the Dutch as part of the Riau-Lingga sul-
tanate. Such an action ought to have been avoided, they protested, “since
the assurance has been received that the Sultan of Lingga is disposed to
cooperate with our Government for the destruction of piracy”.27
Something similar happened so far as the suppression of Ilanun piracy
was concerned. The British sought the cooperation of the Spaniards in
1861–2, for “nests could not be reached without encroaching upon
what the Spanish Government claim to be their territory”.28 The British
Foreign Office thought that “our sailors and mariners” should be “pro-
hibited from landing in any island claimed by Spain without the consent of
the local Spanish authority, if any such is to be found in or near the island,
or place of refuge of the pirates”.29 The very prospect of extended British
operations, even in putative collaboration, induced the Spanish regime
to intensify its unilateral operations, which were made more effective,
indeed, by the introduction of steamers.
The experience of the age of empires is not irrelevant to the age of
nation states. Now, indeed, no states can be regarded as piratical, even in
the sense that their rulers might openly condone aristocratic adventure.
But, claiming a maritime jurisdiction that has indeed been much extended
in the post-imperial phase, they have extended obligations as well as rights.
Again, there are no imperial powers with an interest—derived not only
from a search for commercial security but also from a desire for territorial
expansion—in enforcing the compliance of the local states. But the impor-
tance of maritime security in the Straits has only increased; it still provides
targets, even if they are not the same; and a number of major powers see
it as an economic lifeline (80% of east Asian energy supplies go through
the Straits). Piracy indeed surged after 1998 with the deterioration of the
Indonesian economy and the struggle in Aceh, though the endeavours of
Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia had improved security by 2005, when
Lloyd’s dropped its war risk designation,30 and Thailand joined them in
the air patrols of the Eyes in the Sky programme.31
Maintaining maritime security, suppressing the forms that piracy now
takes, may, as in the nineteenth century, provoke questions of jurisdic-
tion, even issues of sovereignty. “For some of the littoral states who can
27
q. Tarling, Piracy, p. 92.
28
q. ibid., p. 171.
29
q. ibid., p. 177.
30
Financial Times, 9 August 2006.
31
Anders C. Sjaastad, “Southeast Asian SLOCs and security options”, in Kwa Chong Guan
and John K. Skogan, eds, Maritime Security in Southeast Asia (London and New York:
Routledge, 2007), p. 12.
20 N. TARLING
still remember their colonial past, the principle of sovereignty is sacrosanct

and any arrangement or action that could be seen to undermine it is
taboo.”32 It may, as in the past, be difficult for the states in the region to
collaborate with one another. Yet, if they do not, they will fail to meet
the expectations of the greater states whose commerce uses the Straits.
Their intervention is not of the old-fashioned kind, but it is desirable
to avert it. Even proffers of help are difficult to accept, though hard to
refuse.
The means of a wider cooperation seem, however, to be at hand. The
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is predicated on the
acceptance of the sovereignty and integrity of the states in the region and
on the notion that, if they play down their differences, the region will be
less open than it has been in the past to the intervention of outside pow-
ers, called in or moving in as a result of its divisions. It seems to provide
a mechanism through which they may collaborate in providing for the
maritime security of the region, even though there are still many “mari-
time border” differences.33 And it would be in keeping with the economic
objectives of the Association as well as the political.
Each state indeed has different priorities and there are differences
among the states most closely concerned. All Malaysia’s major ports are
on the Straits, and for the Indonesians, as for the Dutch, it has a strategic
importance. Singapore’s interest is that of an international port-city: it has,
as J.N. Mak argues, the interests of a maritime state rather than a littoral
one.34 The issue of sovereignty bulks large with the littoral states, of secu-
rity with the maritime states. Malaysia and Indonesia did not sign up to
the post-Achille Lauro UN Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful
Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation of 1988. But, Tamara
Renee Shie suggests, ASEAN “might consider developing a regional code
of conduct for territorial seas.… A regional agreement similar to the SUA
may be more palatable than a binding international one for nations still
concerned over sovereignty and territorial issues.”35
32
Ibid., p. 3.
33
Mark Rolls, “Indonesian defence policy and arms procurers in the post-Suharto period,”
in Stephen J. Epstein, ed., Understanding Indonesia (Wellington: Asian Studies Institute,
Victoria University, 2006), p. 33.
34
“Unilateralism and regionalism: working together and alone in the Malacca Straits,” in
Ong-Webb, pp. 137–40.
35
“Maritime piracy in Southeast Asia: the evolution and progress of intra-ASEAN coopera-
tion,” in ibid., p. 182.
ASEAN’s Regional Forum (ARF) may, as Kwa Chong Guan suggests,

provide a means of “engaging and enmeshing other regional navies in
building confidence and transparency”. The navies of Malaysia and
Singapore, he points out, “lead in having a long series of exercise … with
their Australian, British and New Zealand counterparts under the aegis of
the Five Power Defence Arrangement (FPDA)”.36 Agreements to advance
security in a world of states in one set of circumstances may be adapted to
advance it in another.
It is not merely, however, a matter of suppression: it is also a matter of
prevention. The structural origins of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
piracy were assessed at the time by men like Admiral Owen and have been
discussed by subsequent historians. Those who now seek to bring piracy
to an end must again think not merely in terms of patrols and controls.
They must consider why young men join in piratical expeditions and pro-
vide alternative forms of employment. They must also seek out those who
employ them and who sustain, organise and benefit from their piratical
activities. Who are the current equivalent of the anak raja? Where are they
located? How are they to be tackled?
“We no longer consider the acts of pirates to be an indictment of the
entire community in which they live. … It is a crime of an individual and
the group of individuals who directly support that crime – the accom-
plices, piratical companions, and, if they exist, the criminal bosses and
financier”, wrote Ronald Haywood and Roberta Spivak in 2012. “But
it is also a crime which society no longer has the institutions of justice to
control.” Empires have in many cases given way to weak states—where
there are what Adam Young terms “gaps in political hegemony”37—and
national flags given way to flags of convenience, at the same time as com-
merce has vastly expanded. And yet, as Haywood and Spivak say, there has
been no coordinated response.38
36
“Reflections on the changing maritime security environment,” in Kwa and Skogan,
p. 193.
37
Adam J. Young, Contemporary Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia (Leiden: IIAS;
Singapore: ISEAS, 2007), p. 69.
38
Robert Haywood and Roberta Spivak, Maritime Piracy (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012),
pp. 120–3.
CHAPTER 3
The Straits of Malacca: Malaysia’s Threat

Perception and Strategy for Maritime
Security
K.S. Balakrishnan and Helena Varkkey
Introduction
The politics of the management of the Straits of Malacca has been quite
complex. While the Straits of Malacca has its own unique status as an inter-
national waterway, sovereignty over territorial waters of the Straits remains
in the hands of the littoral states of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.
However in the present era, national interest often stretches far beyond
sovereign boundaries, especially when it comes up against other sovereign
boundaries. Furthermore, the strategic importance of the Straits means
that attempts by international powers to intervene in the management
of this area are inevitable, especially when this involves security issues of
common concern. Hence, the maritime strategy of the littoral states can-
not be limited to the protection of national sovereignty in a traditional
sense. In the contemporary context, it demands a larger commitment to
K.S. Balakrishnan (*) • H. Varkkey

Department of International and Strategic Studies, University of Malaya,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

24 K.S. BALAKRISHNAN AND H. VARKKEY
protect not only the national interests of the state but also to protect the
interests of the international community as a whole. It is in this context
that one should examine maritime strategy in international waterways or
sea lanes like the Straits of Malacca, being careful to avoid rather parochial
understandings and perceptions of national security.
The role of the naval force as only for the protection of internal sover-
eignty or for guarding the national waters has become untenable and obso-
lete in the contemporary era. New challenges are emerging and redefining
the way governments perceive national security. The age of terrorism and
the rise of non-state actors challenging national and international secu-
rity demand more multilateral initiatives and better cooperation between
nation states. Hence, the need to maintain the security of vital sea lanes
like the Malacca Straits demands higher commitments from these states.
Nation states now have to go beyond the idea of cooperative security and
move towards what can be regarded as common or comprehensive secu-
rity. Although this doctrine of common and comprehensive security is not
new, its applicability to maritime security is a rather novel development.
The Straits of Malacca holds a special position in Malaysia’s maritime
interests. It is without doubt the most important strategic sea lane for
Malaysia, both in terms of national and regional maritime security. The
assessment of the maritime strategy of a nation like Malaysia requires a
close examination of national priorities. Hence, this article will address
Malaysia’s threat perception and maritime strategy in managing security
in the Straits of Malacca. It will examine how Malaysia adopts and par-
ticipates in various initiatives at multiple levels in the effort to uphold the
security of the Straits at all times. This paper will also briefly discuss exter-
nal players and their interest in this maritime zone.
The Straits of Malacca: Malaysia’s Threat

Perception in the Maritime Zone
The Straits of Malacca stretches about 600 miles in length. Its width range
is about 1.5 miles at the narrowest point between the Indonesian island
of Sumatra and Peninsular Malaysia. Historically, almost all major colonial
powers have used the Malacca Straits for strategic gains during the time
of peace and war. It has been continuously regarded as among the most
strategic sea lanes connecting the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.
For example, the Malacca Straits was an important support system for the
THE STRAITS OF MALACCA: MALAYSIA’S THREAT PERCEPTION AND STRATEGY... 25
East Asian economic miracle of the early 1990s, bringing manufactured

goods from the Asian Tigers to destinations in the West. Furthermore,
the Malacca Straits provides passage for massive shipments of oil from the
Middle East to be exported to some of the most dynamic economies of
East Asia, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Japan and
some Southeast Asian countries.
The Straits is still one of the world’s busiest sea lanes. Hence, world
trade is heavily dependent on the smooth passage and freedom of naviga-
tion in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. Currently, more than 60,000
vessels pass through the Straits every year. Traffic on the Straits continues
to grow annually in line with the growth in global maritime commerce.
However, the length and narrowness of the Straits can create navigational
problems for maritime powers and other countries with vested interests in
the area. Furthermore, any security threats to this important sea lane can
seriously affect trade utilising the global shipping sector.
Malaysia’s threat perception towards the Straits is very much in line with
the threat perceptions of the other key players. Trade dependent states like
Malaysia and Singapore were very much concerned after September 11,
2001 when the international community raised the issue of the potential for
maritime terrorism in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. International
media tended to exaggerate the risk of militant or pirate attacks on ships
plying this maritime zone, while questioning the capability of the littoral
states in handling such maritime terrorist attacks. This was despite the fact
that the three littoral states have managed security in the Straits and even
upgraded their surveillance systems there even before the September 11
tragedy or the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.
Malaysia’s security concerns and threat perception also go beyond the
concerns of maritime terrorism. First Admiral Ahmad Kamarulzaman
in a conference presentation in 2005 in Kuala Lumpur highlighted that
there are more issues such as minor theft, armed robberies, piracy, illegal
migration, transnational crime, terrorism and environmental concerns that
affect security in the Straits of Malacca.1 For example, illegal fishing and oil
spills have become important concerns in recent years.
The ongoing Spratly Islands dispute in the South China Sea which
is connected to the Straits also continues to be a security concern. The
1
A. Kamarulzaman, “Maritime Security in the Straits of Malacca: A Holistic Perspective”,
in the Indian Ocean Research Group Conference, Kuala Lumpur: Royal Malaysian Navy
(2005).
Spratly Islands are the subject of a major unresolved maritime territorial

dispute involving six countries, namely China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan,
the Philippines and Brunei. China claims almost the entire South China
Sea as its internal waters on historical grounds. The Chinese People’s
Liberation Army has in the past resorted to the use of force in 1974 and
1988 on overlapping claims.2 There is serious risk that escalation of this
territorial dispute may spill over to the waters of the Straits.
Therefore, the control and management of the security of the Straits
of Malacca has long been a highly political issue. While the security of
the Straits is an important concern for all, Malaysia and the other litto-
ral states view suspiciously attempts by any party to internationalise the
security situation in that maritime zone. While littoral states generally
welcome positive contributions from non-littoral states in terms of fund-
ing and surveillance equipment, they are always wary of any initiatives
that might impinge upon the sovereignty of their territorial waters. For
example, when the issue of transit and international status of strategic
straits became an issue in the 1970s, Malaysia and Indonesia quickly
responded by declaring the Straits of Malacca as ‘not international
straits’ on 16 November 19713 to prevent undue involvement from out-
side powers, even though the United Nations Convention on the Law
of the Sea (UNCLOS) maintained the right of continuous and expedi-
ent innocent transit by all through these territorial waters. Furthermore,
these countries have largely been reluctant to accept proposals of pri-
vate armed guards or other private initiatives suggested by the shipping
community.
One persistent and contentious issue in the management of maritime
security in the Straits is the involvement of the USA. For the USA, an
important balancer in the maritime power game, the concern over free-
dom of navigation in this Straits is pivotal. This has been especially so
of late, where there has been a sharp increase of US warships plying the
Straits on the way to their missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. With this
added strategic importance of the Straits to the USA, the country has
adopted a new approach called the “pivot strategy” to explain its military
return and the beefing up of security with allies in the Southeast Asian
2
M. Leifer, “The Maritime Regime and Regional Security in East Asia”, The Pacific Review
4:2 (1991), pp. 126–35.
3
K. H. P. Yu, “Politics of Controlling the Straits of Malacca,” IDSA Journal (July–
September 1984), pp. 101–21.
theatre, effectively making vital sea lanes and maritime zones part of its
maritime domain awareness.
Opinion is somewhat split among the littoral states in this matter. The
island state of Singapore has long been hosting and facilitating US vessels
in its shores under a special arrangement, hence making Singapore rather
open to US involvement in the management of security of the Straits.
However, the idea of the USA playing a role in the security of the Straits
is viewed by Malaysia and Indonesia as having serious consequences for
their sovereignty. For example, in 2004, the US suggestion for a regional
maritime security initiative to address its concerns over maritime terror-
ism, shipment of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
materials, arms smuggling and the potential rise in piracy on foreign ves-
sels did not receive a positive response from Malaysia and Indonesia.4
They argued that the legal consequences for such an arrangement were
not properly considered. Other US initiatives discussed below like the
Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), Cooperation and Readiness Afloat
(CARAT), and Southeast Asian Cooperation against Terrorism (SEACAT)
were also viewed less favourably by Malaysia and Indonesia, at least in its
initial stages.5
Maritime Strategy and Malaysia’s Approach

Ideas and theories pertaining to maritime strategy have evolved over the
last century. However, classic works of maritime theorists and strategic
thinkers like Alfred Thayer Mahan and Julian Corbett remain a useful
framework for understanding the maritime strategy of a nation. Mahan’s
ideas on sea power describe the relevance of a large navy for a huge mari-
time power. Corbett, on the contrary, stressed on the various types of ships
that can be used in different scenarios and for a variety of states. Their
works, The Influence of Sea Power upon History6 and Some Principles of
Maritime Strategy are highly acclaimed even today among navies, seafarers
and the maritime community in general.7 This is because the fundamentals
4
M. J. Valencia, “Ensuring Asia’s Maritime Safety,” Far Eastern Economic Review, October
14, 2014, p. 27.
5
K. S. Balakrishnan, “Malaysia’s Concern over Maritime Terrorism in Southeast Asia,”
Journal of Maritime Geopolitics and Culture, Iss. 1 (2010), pp. 23–34.
6
A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 (Boston: Little, Brown
and Co, 1890).
7
J. Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy (New York: AMS Press, 1972).
of maritime strategy and sea power still remain intact in many ways, with
ideas such as command and control in sea, sea denial and constitution
of fleet remaining vital. This is complemented by new developments in
maritime strategy as a result of more modern elements such as sub-surface
strategy and maritime air power.8
In view of the strategic importance of the Straits of Malacca, protecting
the security of the sea lanes of communication in the Straits of Malacca is
critical not just from a national military strategic perspective but also for
the overall economic interest of the region. Malaysia is fully aware of this
interdependent strategic responsibility. This sense of responsibility and the
necessary strategic response and capability development has increased sig-
nificantly since the September 11 tragedy, as a response to the heightened
fear of maritime terrorism targeting vessels passing this vital Straits.
The first line of military strategic defence for Malaysia is the Royal
Malaysian Navy (RMN). The RMN is very much a modern force which
is working towards joint operations and other sophisticated capabilities.
RMN strategies are generally in line with advanced operational concepts
and doctrines commonly observed by Western forces given the exposure,
exercise and training of Malaysian naval officers with Western forces and
countries. For example, Malaysia has had commendable experiences of
maritime security cooperation with other actors like the Commonwealth
forces and the USA. Participation in international peacekeeping has also
provided Malaysia with valuable lessons, for example Malaysia’s involve-
ment in peace-monitoring efforts in the southern Philippines. More
recently, experiences of the RMN in the Gulf of Aden are providing
good strategic lessons for Malaysia on security cooperation in the mar-
itime zones. In line with almost all other developed armed forces, the
Malaysian Armed Forces and the RMN are fully aware of its maritime
domain. Malaysia’s military strategy and defence policy have focused pri-
marily on comprehensive security and cooperative security, with special
attention also paid to total defence.9 The emphasis of maritime strategy is
without doubt the focus of the protection of sea lanes of communication
and maritime space from hostile elements.
8
K. Nelson, and E. J. Errington, Navies and Global Defence: Theories and Strategies
(London: Praeger, 1995).
9
K. S. Balakrishnan, “Malaysia’s Defense Policy, Military Modernisation and National
Security” in Malaysia’s Defense and Security since 1957, A. R. Baginda, ed. (Kuala Lumpur:
Malaysian Strategic Research Centre, 2009).
However, the RMN is still a small force. Hence, to provide support

to the RMN, Malaysia has combined various maritime agencies in a form
of coast guard known as the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency
(MMEA), as further elaborated below. Overall, maritime awareness of these
forces is commendable given the record of managing crises and security
problems along Malaysia’s long coastlines and Exclusive Economic Zone
(EEZ). Both the RMN and MMEA have developed a flexible approach to
maritime strategy, making use of all type of surface, sub-surface and aerial
coverage assets and capabilities for war fighting and defence.10
As the RMN remains a growing force in need of continued enhance-
ment, and the MMEA being a fairly new project, funding for defence
and procurement is an issue of great concern. The government of the
day often focuses more on developing the nation, and defence priorities
are normally met with long-term goals in mind, rather than short-term
decisions on procurement. Malaysia’s defence budget is at an average of
less than three percent. It is very much lower than, for example, cash-rich
Singapore which maintains a superior procurement and defence moderni-
sation policy. For example, the defence budget of Singapore for 2011 is
estimated at USD 9.66 billion and Malaysia’s defence budget was only
around USD 4.54 billion for the same year.11
But this has not crippled Malaysia’s effort to enhance maritime security
in areas of common and commercial interest. Malaysia has adopted a multi-
layered maritime strategy where national naval and maritime initiatives are
also being complemented by regional and international efforts to protect
the waterways. Overall, numerous initiatives are in place for creating clar-
ity of the maritime domain awareness and maritime security for sea lanes
and the EEZ of Malaysia and other littoral states. Security is no longer
viewed from a perspective of national security and national interest of one
nation. Security in the maritime zone particularly is viewed as common
responsibility with a comprehensive dimension to it. Malaysia’s manage-
ment of maritime security, be it in the Straits of Malacca or other EEZs,
is currently viewed in this sense rather than in the narrow sovereignty-
protection mindset of the past.
Hence, as one of the proprietors of the Malacca Straits, Malaysia has put
into place various strategies to sustain the navigational and environmental
10
A. Kamarulzaman, “The Royal Malaysian Navy of the 21st Century,” MIMA Bulletin,
Iss.10 (2003), pp. 2–7.
11
Reuters, “SEA on Defense Shopping Spree”, New Straits Times, Kuala Lumpur, 2012.
safety of the Straits, as well as to ensure its security. Apart from unilat-
eral strategies, Malaysia has also cooperated with various other states and
organisations at the regional and international level to ensure that the
Straits are safe and secure for its users and for Malaysia. The following sec-
tions discuss the safety and security measures taken by Malaysia on three
levels; bilateral, regional and international.
National Initiatives and Measures to Protect

the Straits of Malacca
The measures taken by Malaysia at the national level can be divided into:
measures to ensure the navigational safety for the users of the Straits; strat-
egies to maintain the environmental well-being of the Straits and protec-
tion against pollution; and steps taken to maintain a high level of security
in the Straits, in the face of threats of piracy and terrorism. In terms of
navigational safety, Malaysia has been steadily putting into place new navi-
gational aids in the Straits and upgrading old ones over the years. Latest
available figures state that Malaysia spent an estimated USD 70 million
on Straits maintenance and upgrading exercises of navigational aids in the
Straits between 1990 and 2000.12 One of the most important navigational
aids on the Straits has been the Differential Global Navigational Satellite
System and Automatic Identification System that was set up by the Marine
Department of Malaysia, which has enhanced vessel positioning within the
Straits to track vessels transiting the sea lane.
Malaysia is also developing a modern and effective waste disposal sys-
tem in controlling the discharge of land-based sources of pollution into
the Straits of Malacca to maintain the water quality of the Straits. Malaysia
also conducts vessel-source pollution clean-up in the Malaysian territorial
waters of the Straits. For example, in 1997, there was a collision between
MT Evoikos and MT Orpin Global in waters of the Straits of Singapore.
The Evoikos, which was transporting approximately 130,000 tonnes of
heavy fuel oil, sustained damage to its three cargo tanks spilling an esti-
mated 29,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil into the sea. When the slick reached
12
H. Muhammad Varkkey, “Environmental Navigational Safety Cooperation in the
Malacca and Singapore Straits: Debating the Japanese Proposal” in The Seas Divide:
Geopolitics and Maritime Issues in Southeast Asia, J. S. Sidhu and K. S. Balakrishnan, eds.,
(Kuala Lumpur: Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences, University of Malaya, 2008),
pp. 145–50.
Malaysian shores, it was virtually solid and had spread over a large area.
In the event, some five kilometres of Malaysian shores was oiled. Onshore
clean-up operations were coordinated by the Malaysian Department of
Environment assisted by the Marine Department of Malaysia.13
However, Malaysia is limited in its unilateral activities for ensuring navi-
gational and environmental safety in the Straits of Malacca by the provi-
sions of UNCLOS. UNCLOS states that vessels plying the Straits have
the right of continuous and expedient transit through territorial waters
subject to the expectations of innocent passage where transit is not preju-
dicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal states. Therefore,
some initiatives proposed by Malaysia in the interests of navigational and
environmental safety in the Straits, like capping the number of vessels tran-
siting the Straits, and also the application of compulsory pilotage through
critical areas within the Straits have not been well accepted by the interna-
tional shipping community. User states have argued that these initiatives
impinge on their right of continuous and expedient transit through the
Straits.
Malaysia has also shown that it is resolved to reduce piracy in its waters.
For example, as mentioned earlier, Malaysia has consolidated forces
from five of its maritime agencies to establish the MMEA, a coast guard-
type body that was established in May 2004. MMEA began patrols in
November 2005, and was officially launched in March 2006. MMEA
has the mandate to buy new ships, refurbish a good number of its exist-
ing ships (numbering more than seventy), and acquire six helicopters for
improved surveillance, enforcement, and search and rescue operations in
the Straits.14 Through this, Malaysia has increased the number of patrol
vessels, submarines and airpower capability to cover its maritime zone.
MMEA is also empowered to enforce all fourteen federal laws that cover
non-traditional maritime security threats.15 As part of its duties, MMEA
ensures that ports, ships and other maritime platforms conform to inter-
national maritime security practices, and ensures that commercial ships are
13
M. H. Mohd Rusli, “Protecting Vital Sea Lines of Communication: A Study of the
Proposed Designation of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore as a Particularly Sensitive Sea
Area,” Ocean & Coastal Management, No. 57 (March 2012), pp. 79–94.
14
V.Huang, “Building Maritime Security in Southeast Asia,” Naval War College Review
61:1 (2008), pp. 87–105.
15
S. Permal, “Conference Report: The 2nd ASEAN Maritime Forum, 17–19 August
2011, Pattaya, Thailand,” Australian Journal of Maritime and Ocean Affairs, Iss.3 (2011),
pp. 140–3.
not loaded with terror materials. MMEA has also designated its Maritime
Rescue Coordination Centre as the national maritime search and rescue
coordinating centre in the event of a non-traditional maritime security
crisis.
The Malaysian Maritime Sea Surveillance System (SWASLA), estab-
lished in March 1998, was also absorbed under the MMEA framework
in November 2005. SWASLA is the main monitoring centre assisting in
the enforcement of maritime laws in the Straits of Malacca. It is part of an
information system that analyses and disseminates information on mari-
time activities in the waters along the Straits. The radar network system
carries out surveillance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to ensure that
the waters of the Malacca Straits are safe from navigational risks and illegal
activities that could lead to national security threats.16
Initiatives and Security Measures at the Regional

Level
Apart from unilateral initiatives as discussed above, the convergence of
multiple interests among the littoral states and user states has encour-
aged Malaysia to cooperate with other states and organisations. Malaysia is
an active participant of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
initiatives to regional security cooperation. The Straits of Malacca pre-
sented a clear opportunity to work with the other members of ASEAN
such as Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand over shared interests. Hence,
at the regional level, Malaysia has worked together with Indonesia and
Singapore, the other two littoral states, both trilaterally and multilaterally
through ASEAN to enhance the safety, security and environmental protec-
tion in the Straits of Malacca.
The three littoral states of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have
been engaged in cooperative activities for the safety of the Straits since the
1970s. The watershed event that triggered interstate cooperation between
the littoral states was the Joint Statement adopted by the littoral states on
16 November 1971, agreeing that the task of providing navigational safety
is the responsibility of the littoral states and that a body consisting of the
three states should be established to coordinate joint efforts.17
16
Agensi Penguatkuasaan Maritime Malaya, “Sistem Pengawasan Maritiem (Laut) –
SWASIA,” 2010.
17
N. Khalid, “With a Little Help from My Friends: Maritime Capacity-Building Measures
in the Straits of Malacca,” Contemporary Southeast Asia 31:3 (2009), pp. 426–46.
This resulted in the establishment of the Tripartite Technical Experts

Group (TTEG) in 1971, made up of technical operational experts from the
three littoral states. The TTEG was a pivotal development in the manage-
ment of traffic and environmental protection in the Straits. It was tasked
with cooperation on navigational safety and ship-source pollution in the
Straits. The TTEG also acts as a forum to address safety of navigation and
environmental protection issues in the Straits. It meets regularly to coor-
dinate policies relating to safety of navigation and environmental protec-
tion in the Straits. Over the years, the TTEG has contributed towards the
enhancement of navigational safety in the Straits through the establish-
ment of a vessel routing system and a mandatory ship reporting system
known as the Straits of Malacca Ship Reporting System (STRAITREP).
Malaysian representatives at the TTEG have been instrumental in pro-
moting a new strategy for navigational safety in the Straits, namely the
Voluntary Pilotage System (VPS). Malaysia proposed this at the trilateral
level after unilateral proposals for a compulsory pilotage system was shot
down by users of the Straits. Pilotage services are compulsory at major
ports along the Straits of Malacca, when ships are leaving and entering
port limits. However, pilotage is not compulsory for ships navigating the
Straits. Due to the fear of future casualties and environmental damage
in the Straits, Malaysia has suggested to intensify the usage of a pilot-
age system in the Straits of Malacca, especially when navigating through
critical areas within the Straits. Malaysia has prepared and circulated the
revised guidelines for a VPS to be circulated among the littoral states.
During the 34th TTEG meeting in Singapore in 2009, the littoral states
have agreed on the proposed application of VPS for vessels navigating
the Straits of Malacca, and the TTEG is currently finalising the applica-
tion of VPS.18
While there has been a long history of Malaysian coordination over
navigational and environmental safety with Indonesia and Singapore as
discussed above, trilateral coordination over security matters, especially
those relating to piracy and counter-terrorism are comparatively recent.
This has been due to the sovereignty concerns of the respective states,
with each state reluctant to undertake joint patrols for fear of security
breaches if neighbouring military personnel were allowed access into sov-
ereign territory. However, the rise of piracy cases in the Straits around
the turn of the century highlighted the need for trilateral cooperation
18
M. H. Mohd Rusli, “Protecting Vital Sea Lines of Communication”, pp. 79–94.
on security in the Straits. This brought about a new mindset on security

cooperation at the regional level.
Beginning in 2004, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore took steps to
enhance cooperation and information sharing to combat piracy and armed
robbery against ships. In July 2004, the first Malaysia-Singapore-Indonesia
year round naval patrols for the Straits of Malacca—the Malacca Straits
Surface Patrols (MSSP)—was launched, in order to provide a constant
naval presence in the Straits. However, to preserve territorial sensitivities,
these patrols involve ships from the three littoral states patrolling within
their own waters but in a coordinated manner. The sea patrols do permit
“hot pursuit” across territorial sea boundaries, but they contain a “hand-
off mechanism” to deal with cross-boundary enforcement.
The increased urgency to address piracy issues in the Straits how-
ever encouraged the littoral states further to enhance cooperation. In
September 2005, the three states including Thailand (included in 2008)
began to conduct aerial patrols in the Straits, known as “Eyes in the
Sky” (EiS). Under EiS, each country allocates maritime patrol aircraft
to conduct two air sorties per week along the Malacca Straits. EiS was
especially significant because it marked the very first time the neighbour-
ing states had been prepared to set aside sovereignty concerns over their
territorial waters and allow foreign forces across these maritime borders.
The plan allows for aircraft to enter up to three nautical miles into the
twelve-nautical-mile territories of the participating states.19 Each flight
carries a combined maritime patrol team made up of military person-
nel from each of the participating states. The respective country’s offi-
cer controls action over the territorial waters of that particular officer’s
state. This arrangement was made specifically to mollify any sovereignty
and at the same time, ensure that participating states do not abuse these
flights for any other more sensitive purposes, for instance intelligence
gathering.20
To further enhance the effectiveness of these programmes, the Malacca
Straits Patrols (MSP) agreement was signed by all participating states in
April 2006, linking the surface and air patrols with intelligence exchange,
and standardising operating procedures to coordinate the operations of
19
C. Z. Raymond, “Piracy and Armed Robbery in the Malacca Strait,” Naval War College
Review 62:3 (2009), pp. 31–42.
20
V.Huang, “Building Maritime Security in Southeast Asia,” pp. 87–105.
air and surface units.21 The MSP comprises three elements: the MSSP,
EiS, and the Intelligence Exchange Group (IEG). The IEG went on to
develop the MSP Information System to improve coordination and situ-
ational awareness at sea among the three countries. The decrease in acts of
maritime violence in Southeast Asia during the period of 2004–08 may be
attributed to these positive developments. The MSP seems to have acted
as a strong deterrent to pirates and sea robbers.
Complementing these trilateral efforts have been ASEAN-level coop-
erative initiatives on counter-terrorism. ASEAN has helped foster this
cooperative spirit by hosting regular meetings and issuing proclamations,
including a communiqué produced by the 29th ASEAN Chiefs of Police
Conference in Hanoi (May 2009), which articulated the common goal
of ‘develop[ing] capacity building amongst all member countries [on
counter-terrorism] through specific training, sharing of experiences and
best practices by relevant training institutions of the member countries’.22
The ASEAN Maritime Forum was also established in 2010 to discuss and
identify maritime cooperation opportunities that would intensify regional
integration of the ASEAN community through enhanced maritime secu-
rity and related issues, including search and rescue and assisting persons in
distress at sea. Fora like the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting are likely
to bring about more initiatives for regional maritime cooperation beyond
the Straits of Malacca.
Initiatives at the International Level and Security

Cooperation
Security challenges posed by the Straits of Malacca are numerous and
complex as it involves global seafarers and the strategic interests of some
great powers. Security initiatives under UNCLOS reveal that while inter-
national users of the Straits consider it as an international sea lane which
they enjoy the right to use, at the same time they consider all efforts
(and consequent financial burden) related to the securing of the Straits
and ensuring navigational safety as the responsibility of the states border-
ing it.23 The cost of putting in place navigational safety equipment and
21
I. Storey, “Maritime Security in Southeast Asia: Two Cheers for Regional Cooperation,”
Southeast Asian Affairs 2009 (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2010), pp. 36–58.
22
Muhammad Varkkey, “Environmental Navigational Safety Cooperation,” pp. 145–59.
23
Huang, “Building Maritime Security in Southeast Asia,” pp. 87–105.
undertaking environmental protection measures is already burdensome to

Malaysia and will no doubt rise further as traffic increases. Malaysia there-
fore greatly welcomes any international aid rendered to help relieve the
huge financial burden of financing the upkeep of the congested waterway.
At the forefront of nations which have been generous in helping
Malaysia and the other littoral states is Japan, which has extended both
technical and financial assistance to maintain the Straits since the 1960s.
Over the last 30 years, Japan has assisted in hydrological surveys and
electronic mapping of the Straits, and infrastructure development proj-
ects to improve navigational safety in the sea lanes, worth upwards of
USD 150 million.24 Most significantly, under the auspices of the Nippon
Foundation, a prominent NGO, Japan worked with the governments of
Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia to establish the Malacca Straits Council
(MSC) in 1969 to boost safety navigation in the Straits. The MSC had
contributed more than USD 130 million towards enhancing the safety
of navigation in the Straits, and in recent years, has been spending USD
500,000 annually towards the maintenance of aids to navigation in the
Straits.25 For example, in 1981, Japan allocated USD 5 million to the
MSC to set up a Revolving Fund with the littoral states to combat oil spills
in the Straits.26
Furthermore, in cooperation with ASEAN, the Japan Association
of Marine Safety, the Sasakawa Foundation and Japanese Shipowners
Association initiated the formation of Oil Spills Preparedness and Response
Teams based in major seaports along the waterway in 1994. The project
provided stockpiles in all ASEAN countries to supplement each coun-
try’s capabilities, and incurred a cost of USD 10 million.27 Japan has also
pledged USD 70 million for the ASEAN Integration initiative during the
Japan-ASEAN Summit Meeting in 2005, part of which can be used to
fund efforts to maintain the Straits.28
Malaysia and the other littoral states have also actively engaged with the
International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in establishing international
mechanisms to uphold navigational and environmental safety in the Straits.
24
Muhammad Varkkey, “Environmental Navigational Safety Cooperation,” pp. 145–59.
25
J. H. Ho, “Enhancing Safety, Security, and Environmental Protection of the Straits of
Malacca and Singapore: The Cooperative Mechanism,” Ocean Development & International
Law 40:2 (2009), pp. 233–47.
26
Khalid, “With a Little Help from My Friends,” pp. 426–46.
27
Muhammad Varkkey, op. cit.
28
Khalid, op. cit.
For example, on the recommendation of the littoral states, the IMO

adopted Resolution A.375(X) Navigation through the Straits of Malacca
and Singapore in November 1977, which mandated a new routing sys-
tem for the Straits which included traffic separation schemes, deep-water
routes, and rules relating to under-keel clearance for deep-draft vessels.
Furthermore, the IMO has resolved that all ships transiting the Straits
must comply with all of the IMO conventions on safety and ship-source
pollution that have been generally accepted.
Most importantly, the littoral states of Malaysia, Indonesia and
Singapore worked in conjunction with the IMO in order to apply Article
43 of UNCLOS in the Straits of Malacca. Article 43 provides that user
states and states bordering a strait should, by agreement, cooperate on
navigational safety and ship-source pollution. In November 2004, the lit-
toral states and the IMO convened a high level conference to address the
safety of ships plying the Straits of Malacca. The outcome was the cre-
ation of a framework for cooperation between the users of the Straits and
the littoral states known as the Cooperative Mechanism. The Cooperative
Mechanism consists of three elements: a Cooperation Forum, an Aids to
Navigation Fund, and six specific projects to enhance safety and environ-
mental protection in the Straits. Contributing user states could participate
in the projects in close cooperation with the relevant littoral states through
the Project Coordination Committee. This is the first time Article 43 has
been implemented for a strait used in international navigation.29
Malaysia proposed two projects as part of the Cooperative Mechanism.
The first project involved the removal of eleven shipwrecks in the Straits of
Malacca over a five-year period involving a one-time cost of USD 6.3 mil-
lion and a removal cost of USD five million per wreck. The second proj-
ect was for cooperation and capacity building on hazardous and noxious
substances (HNS) preparedness and response in the Straits of Malacca,
including the setting up of HNS Response Centers over two years at a
projected cost of USD 3.5 million.30 The USA has expressed interest in
exploring the possibility of contributing to the first project. China, the
USA and Australia have offered to fund parts of the second project, cover-
ing cooperation and capacity building. China and the USA had undertaken
29
R. Beckman, “Singapore Strives to Enhance Safety, Security, and Environmental
Protection of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore,” Ocean Development & International
Law 14:2 (2009), pp. 167–200.
30
Ho, “Enhancing Safety, Security, and Environmental Protection,” pp. 233–47.
needs assessment exercises to further improve on the various project pro-

posals for creating adequate capacity in the Straits to increase preparedness
and enhance effective responses to any incidents of pollution from HNS,
with the ultimate goal being that that the project could be implemented
in a modular manner in stages by multiple sponsors.31
Major external powers have a keen interest in security and stability in
the Southeast Asian region, an interest related to its all-important sea
lanes of communication, the Malacca Straits. As a result, these external
users have generally been willing and eager to engage with the littoral
states on maritime security matters. However, as with regional coopera-
tion on security in the Straits of Malacca, international cooperation on
security in the Straits has also been fraught with complications due to
sovereignty concerns of the littoral states. Malaysia in particular does not
take kindly to suggestions that it falls short in its capacity to protect the
waterway, and is often suspicious of offers of assistance by external pow-
ers that may enhance their role in maintaining the security of the Straits.
Malaysia is wary of “internationalisation” of the Straits, which would
impinge upon national security interests. It is highly sensitive about its
sovereignty and is not willing to allow foreign ships to patrol or to exer-
cise jurisdiction over pirates or suspected terrorists in waters under its
sovereignty.
Australia, China, India, Japan and the USA have all offered forms of
assistance to the littoral states with relation to piracy. Among these, the
USA and Japan have been the most eager in offering assistance. The USA,
motivated by non-traditional security concerns stretching beyond piracy
such as terrorism and seaborne WMD proliferation, has been actively seek-
ing opportunities to engage with the littoral states in maritime security
cooperation, several of which include significant anti-piracy elements.
One initiative, announced by the USA in May 2003, is the PSI, as men-
tioned briefly above. The main purpose of the PSI is to interdict shipments
of WMD and related goods to terrorists and countries of proliferation con-
cern. Several states in the region, including Malaysia, however expressed
reservations and concerns about the PSI. One of the main concerns is that
the USA has not been clear on whether interdictions and boardings under
31
E. E. Mitropolous, “Enhancing safety, security and environmental protection” in
Meeting on the Straits of Malacca and Singapore (Singapore: International Maritime
Organization, 2007).
the PSI will be conducted in a manner that is consistent with UNCLOS.32

Later in 2004, inaccurate media reports suggesting that the USA was con-
sidering the deployment of marines to secure Southeast Asian waterways
under a regional maritime security initiative triggered a very public ver-
bal backlash against American maritime security programmes. Malaysia
bristled at the reports, condemned the proposal as a violation of its sover-
eignty and warned that the presence of US forces in the Straits would only
fuel Islamic radicalism in Southeast Asia.
It became clear that Malaysia and the other littoral states wanted mari-
time security in the Malacca Straits to be exclusively within the purview
of only the three coastal countries and that, if extra regional countries
were to be involved, it was strictly to be for capacity building, information
exchange and the provision of training. This realisation has encouraged
the USA to develop proposals more harmonious with regional interests.
With this new awareness, American leaders have been able to reassure
regional states of their respect for national sovereignty, and America’s less-
ambitious proposals in more recent years have gained greater acceptance
in the region.
The most visible aspect of US maritime security cooperation with the
littoral states is the network of exercises conducted between American
maritime forces and their regional counterparts. The CARAT annual exer-
cise series that pairs the US Navy, Marine Corps, and Cost Guards with
their partners in Malaysia and other Southeast Asian States continues to
grow more complex and has included anti-piracy programmes since 2004.
Similarly the SEACAT at-sea exercise was designed in 2002 to contribute
to regional coordination efforts that support cooperative responses to ter-
rorism and national crimes at sea including piracy. In this programme, each
participating navy works with the US Navy on a bilateral basis, contribut-
ing to the scenario in accordance with its own capabilities and goals. In
addition to sponsoring these exercises, the USA has been actively promot-
ing the systematic sharing of information and the increased use of infor-
mation technologies to strengthen maritime domain awareness enabling
regional security forces to much more easily identify, track, capture and
deter pirates.
Malaysia in particular has been one of the biggest recipients of Section
1206 funds from the US National Defense Authorization Act, which is
32
Beckman, “Singapore Strives to Enhance Safety, Security, and Environmental
Protection,” pp. 167–200.
designed to help countries improve maritime, riverine, border and port

security efforts, particularly in Southeast and South Asia.33 For example,
in 2006–07, Malaysia received USD 16.3 million from the USA, includ-
ing USD 2.2 million to enhance its EiS maritime air surveillance capa-
bilities. The USA also provides funding and expertise to the Southeast
Asia Regional Center for Counter-Terrorism which is based in Kuala
Lumpur.34
Japan also regards Southeast Asian piracy as posing a serious threat
to its comprehensive security, a concept that links economic well-being
together with more traditional security concerns. However unlike the
USA, Japan has been careful to address territorial sovereignties of the lit-
toral states, and Japanese proposals for cooperative anti-piracy ventures
have been generally better accepted among states in the region. For exam-
ple, since 2000, the Japan Coast Guard has been conducting bilateral anti-
piracy exercises with security forces throughout the region. The Japan
Coast Guard also provides subsidised training courses for Southeast Asian
coast guard officers and bases technical experts in the region to assist with
local capacity building.
Japan also provides significant direct assistance to support Malaysia in
its anti-piracy activities. For example, in May 2006, officials announced
that Japanese financial aid will provide Malaysian maritime forces with sat-
ellite tracking systems, satellite telephones, high-capacity computers and
radio communication systems. Similarly, in 2006 Japan transferred owner-
ship of a maritime security training vessel to MMEA.35 In January 2008,
Japan also donated USD 4.34 million to the MMEA for the upgrade of
surveillance radars.36
These episodes suggest that, in general, attempts by extra-regional
powers to exert leadership in the waters of the Straits, especially on secu-
rity issues, are likely to trigger unfavourable reactions from Malaysia and
other littoral states. While the littoral states welcome assistance from the
international community, they are only prepared to accept help which is
unconditional and which does not impinge on their sovereign rights.
33
Storey, “Maritime Security in Southeast Asia,” pp. 36–58.
34
Khalid, “With a Little Help from My Friends,” pp. 426–46.
35
J. F. Bradford, “Shifting the Tides against Piracy in Southeast Asian Waters,” Asian
Survey 48:3 (2008), pp. 473–91.
36
Storey, “Maritime Security in Southeast Asia,” pp. 36–58.
Conclusion
The above analysis has revealed that managing security in the Straits of
Malacca remains a complex matter for Malaysia. Malaysia, along with
Indonesia, has always regarded the Malacca Straits as its internal waters.
In fact, it is quite conspicuous that Malaysia is consciously attempting to
strike the balance between maintaining its national interests and address-
ing international concerns. As a whole, Malaysia’s perception of maritime
threat in the Straits of Malacca is very much tied to the strategic impor-
tance of the Straits as a vital shipping passage for global trade. With this
in mind, Malaysia’s strategy for managing security in the Straits has con-
sistently revolved around maintaining free and safe passageway for these
commercial ships. A major issue in the recent years has been the rise of
public threat perception towards maritime terrorism in the Straits, which
threatened the confidence of users. Malaysia has however been able to
consistently keep a good record of managing terrorism, piracy and security
issues, as one prong of a three-pronged maritime strategy. The mainte-
nance of navigational safety for the users of the Straits and the manage-
ment of the environmental well-being of the Straits make up the other two
prongs of Malaysia’s maritime strategy.
As explained above, maritime agencies in Malaysia have chosen to
address these various safety and security issues through cooperation with
other countries at both the regional and international level. The Malaysian
government’s attitude towards maritime cooperation at the regional level
has generally been positive, especially with the other littoral states. It is in
this area that Malaysia has been most willing to adopt revolutionary forms
of cooperation. For example, the EiS aerial patrol programme discussed
above redefines concepts of sovereignty in the interest of shared secu-
rity. While aerial surveillance over neighbouring countries was in the past
considered a highly sensitive matter, the states partaking in the EiS pro-
gramme were able to find solutions for these sensitivities and have been
running this joint surveillance programme with great success.
International cooperation in national maritime space, and using this
international support to enhance its own maritime security capabilities, is
also not new for Malaysia. As discussed above, assistance from Japan and
the USA in the Malacca Straits has been highly valuable in this respect.
The RMN and MMEA are appreciative of these new avenues of security
cooperation among these international players. In return, interested play-
ers in recent years have been more eager to engage with Malaysia in ways
where their contributions towards securing the Straits of Malacca will be

seen as acceptable to the national and regional norms of security coop-
eration. For example, as discussed above, the USA is learning from the
successes of other players like Japan in achieving high levels of coopera-
tion while diplomatically avoiding sovereignty tensions with littoral states.
Indeed, this article has shown that while the strategic importance of Straits
of Malacca to both the regional and international community can pose
some difficult problems for security cooperation, it can also help the indi-
vidual nation in breaking new ground in maritime security and strategy.
CHAPTER 4
Securitising Piracy and Maritime Terrorism

along the Malacca and Singapore Straits:
Singapore and the Importance
of Facilitating Factors
Mark David Chong
“Given that part of the material used in this article came from my doctoral
research, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisors,
Professor Don Rothwell, and Emeritus Professor Ivan Shearer, for their
guidance, and wise counsel. I am likewise deeply indebted to the trustees of
the Longworth Scholarship as well as the Cooke, Cooke, Coghlan, Godfrey &
Littlejohn Scholarship, both of which were administered by the Sydney Law
School. I would also like to thank my wife, Sharon; my parents, Dr Chong Seng
Kong and Mrs Cynthia Chong; my sister, Melissa; the MacDonald Family (John,
Jo, Andrew, Jason and Nicky); Dr Tracy Loh, Dr Mark Hon, Heng and Jeanne
Marie; Daniel Tan; Ratner Vellu and Sharayne Tan; Cheah Kuan Tatt; Dr Erwin
Lobo; John Tan; Father Kevin Muldoon; Commodore R. S. Vasan (Retired); A/
Professor Robert Beckman; Emeritus Professor Robert Reiner; Professor Wayne
Morrison; Ms Sue Ng, and Emeritus Professor Terry Carney, for their assistance
and encouragement. Finally, this work is lovingly dedicated to my Lord and
Father, without whom this article would not have seen the light of day—Ad
majorem Dei gloriam.”
M.D. Chong (*)

College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook University,
Townsville, Australia

44 M.D. CHONG
Introduction
Given that over 80 per cent of the world’s trade in goods,1 including oil
and liquefied natural gas,2 is reliant upon carriage of these commodities by
sea, the importance of protecting economic sea lanes of communication
(SLOC) cannot be overstated. In fact, the Malacca and Singapore Straits
are considered to be among the most heavily used straits for interna-
tional navigation, with more than 70,000 ships traversing these sea lanes
annually.3 Consequently, allowing such attacks to go unchecked would
invariably cripple commerce on a global scale. Furthermore, ensuring the
navigability of these sea routes will also facilitate the tactical deployment
of blue-water naval forces between the Pacific and Indian Oceans in a cost
effective, expeditious and safe manner.4
The Littoral States likewise have a vested national interest in protect-
ing these maritime corridors because their gross domestic product relies
substantially on an export base, most of which is intended for external
consumption in Europe and the USA.5 Additionally, Singapore, a port-
city mega hub,6 is predominantly dependent upon these waterways being
1
Nong Hong, “Charting a Maritime Security Cooperation Mechanism in the Indian
Ocean: Sharing Responsibilities among Littoral States and User States,” Strategic Analysis,
36:3 (2012), pp. 405–6.
2
Andrew T. H. Tan, “The Emergence of Naval Power in the Straits of Malacca,” Defence
Studies (DS) 12:1(2012), p. 106.
3
The Port Klang’s (Malaysia), Vessel Traffic Service(s) estimated that around 74,136 ships
(which include bulk, Liquefied Natural Gas/Liquefied Petroleum Gas, passenger, tanker and
container vessels) passed through the Straits of Malacca in 2010, up from 71,359 in the
previous year. This is based upon statistics gleaned from their visual observation of ships pass-
ing through the Malacca Straits between January 2010 and December 2010 from their One
Fathom Bank Lighthouse: see the Maritime Department of Malaysia’s website containing
the Mandatory Ship Reporting System in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, “Statistic of
Ships Movement Reported to VTS Klang since 2001 until 2010.” Retrieved from http://
www.marine.gov.my/ser vice/statistik/BKP/Stat%202010/Stat%20Pergerakan%20
kapal%202001-2010.pdf. (Accessed on September 1, 2012).
4
J. N. Mak, “Unilateralism and Regionalism: Working Together and Alone in the Malacca
Straits,” in Graham Gerard Ong-Webb, ed., Piracy, Maritime Terrorism and Securing the
Malacca Straits (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2006), pp. 144–5.
5
In 2010, the merchandise exports for Indonesia amounted to USD 158.2 billion ,
Malaysia USD 198.8 billion, and Singapore USD 351.9 billion: see Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2011
(Bangkok: United Nations Publication, 2011), p. 226.
6
Michael Richardson, A Time Bomb for Global Trade: Maritime-related Terrorism in an
Age of Weapons of Mass Destruction (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2004), p. 3.
SECURITISING PIRACY AND MARITIME TERRORISM ALONG THE MALACCA... 45
open and safe for navigation as it is considered to be the “world’s busiest

port” with vessel arrival tonnage hitting a record level of 2.12 billion gross
tonnes in 2011.7 This is because, among other reasons, Singapore is ide-
ally situated along the “major highways for seaborne trade,”8 those being
the Straits of Malacca, the Singapore Straits and the South China Sea.
Malaysia too, through its efforts in upgrading the port, transhipment and
cargo facilities at Klang9 and Tanjong Pelepas,10 is likewise in the business
of offering first class maritime facilities in this region.11 Indonesia, on the
other hand, views the importance of these waters more from a strategic
perspective than an economic one since the Malacca Straits “is the only
maritime highway that pierces the Indonesian archipelagic border.”12
And yet, as the ensuing sections of this article will illustrate, concrete
opportunities for the Littoral States to cooperate deeply with one another
and with other nations, have unfortunately been missed. Time and time
again, weaker forms of collaborative measures were selected over more
comprehensive joint responses, indicating in a very tangible way, a disso-
nance in the approach taken, on the one hand, by Indonesia and Malaysia,
and on the other, by Singapore, on how best to address piracy and mari-
time terrorism along these channels.
Given the significant maritime security implications embedded in
the present discourse, this study will therefore attempt to analyse these
issues using an approach taken by Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde from the
Copenhagen School of Security Studies13—so as to better understand the
difficulties faced by the Littoral States when attempting to collaborate
7
My Sin Chew (Malaysia), March 20, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.mysinchew.com/
node/71555. (Accessed on April 22, 2013).
8
Chee Hean Teo, RSS Formidable, Speech Presented at the Launching Ceremony of the
Frigate RSS Formidable, in Singapore, January 7, 2004. Retrieved from http://www.
mindef.gov.sg/imindef/press_room/official_releases/nr/2004/jan/07jan04_nr/07jan04_
speech.html#.UXSKELVmh8E. (Accessed on April 22, 2013).
9
Port Klang is located in the Malaysian state of Selangor. For further information, refer to
the Port Klang Authority website at http://www.pka.gov.my/Intro.htm.
10
Located in the state of Johor at the southern end of Peninsula Malaysia.
11
Bernama (B). October 22, 2012. Retrieved from http://maritime.bernama.com/news.
php?id=703771&lang=en. (Accessed on April 22, 2013); B Times (BT). July 12, 2010.
Retrieved from http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BTIMES/articles/westopo/
Article/#ixzz2AtJAA8I5. (Accessed on April 22, 2013).
12
Mak, op. cit., p. 139.
13
For more information, please refer to the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute’s web-
site at http://www.copri.dk.
46 M.D. CHONG
more profoundly with one another to suppress these maritime depreda-

tions within the Malacca and Singapore Straits. It should be noted that
Ralf Emmers has already done admirable work in this area14 and this article
will use his study as a springboard not only to analyse these issues further
but also to interrogate more thoroughly the role facilitating factors play in
the securitisation of perceived existential threats.15
A Hydrographical Overview of These Waters

Geographically, the Malacca Straits is bordered by Thailand to the north,
Indonesia to the west, Malaysia to the east and Singapore to the south.
This sea route is approximately 600 nautical miles (nm) or 1111 kilo-
metres (km) in length and narrows as it approaches Singapore through
the Philip Channel to a width of just 1.5 nm or 2.8 km wide, making it
a dangerous chokepoint (see Fig. 4.1 below).16 Certain areas along its
length are also quite shallow, and reach to a depth of only 0.018 nm or
21.8 metres (m).17
As Fig. 4.2 shows, this sea lane then funnels into the Singapore Straits, a
56.7 nm or 105 km waterway with a width of 8.6 nm or 16 km. The latter
is bordered by Singapore to the north and the Riau Islands of Indonesia
to the south, and offers vessels a deep-water route to Singapore’s port and
harbour areas.
Claiming for themselves a 12 nm territorial sea, Indonesia and Malaysia
entered into a treaty in 1970 to delimit the boundary between them along
the Malacca Straits.18 This resulted in the creation of a common maritime
border that was separated only in a small triangular section of high seas at
14
Ralf Emmers, Non-traditional Security in the Asia-Pacific: The Dynamics of Securitisation
(Singapore: Eastern Universities Press, 2004).
15
See also Francois Vreÿ, “Securitising Piracy,” African Security Review (ASR) 20:3
(2011), pp. 54–66; J. N. Mak, “Securitizing Piracy in Southeast Asia: Malaysia, the
International Maritime Bureau and Singapore,” in M. Caballero-Anthony, R. Emmers and
A. Acharya, eds, Non-Traditional Security in Asia: Dilemmas in Securitization (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2006), pp. 66–92; Bilyana Tsvetkova, “Securitizing Piracy off the Coast of Somalia,”
Central European Journal of International and Security Studies (CEJISS) 3:1 (2009),
pp. 44–63.
16
Joshua Ho, “The Security of Regional Sea Lanes,” Institute of Defence and Strategic
Studies Working Paper Series (Nanyang Technological University) No. 81, (2005), p. 2.
17
Ibid.
18
This treaty came into force on March 10, 1971: The Geographer, Indonesia-Malaysia
Territorial Sea Boundary, International Boundary, Study Series A, Limits in the Seas No. 50,
Washington: United States Department of State (1973), p. 2.
Fig. 4.1 STRAITREP operational map of the Malacca Straits (Maritime and Port
Authority of Singapore. Retrieved from http://www.mpa.gov.sg/sites/port_and_
shipping/port/vessel_traffic_information_system(vtis)/straitrep/operational_
areas.page. (Accessed on April 22, 2013))
the southern end of this corridor (please refer to sector six in Fig. 4.1).19
Likewise, the boundary between Singapore and Indonesia along the
Singapore Straits was delimited by way of convention in 1973,20 and again
in 2009.21 There remains however a portion at the western entrance of the
Singapore Straits (located at the confluence of the Malacca, Singapore and
Johor Straits) which has not yet been resolved as it requires a tripartite
delimitation agreement between all the Littoral States.
As these hydrographical maps also indicate, the numerous small islands,
coves, inlets and bays located along the Malacca and Singapore Straits pro-
vide pirates with ample opportunities to hide, and elude arrest. In fact,
19
Ibid., p. 4.
20
Agreement Stipulating the Territorial Sea Boundary Lines between Indonesia and the
Republic of Singapore in the Straits of Singapore: see Act No. 7/1973; Lembaga Negara No.
59/1973, signed in Jakarta, Indonesia, on May 25, 1973, in force on August 29, 1974.
21
Treaty between the Republic of Indonesia and the Republic of Singapore Relating to the
Delimitation of the Territorial Seas of the Two Countries in the Western Part of the Straits of
Singapore, signed in Jakarta, Indonesia, on March 10, 2009, in force on August 31, 2010.
48 M.D. CHONG
Fig. 4.2 STRAITREP operational map of the Singapore Straits (Maritime and
Port Authority of Singapore. Retrieved from http://www.mpa.gov.sg/sites/port_
and_shipping/port/vessel_traffic_information_system(vtis)/straitrep/operational_
areas.page. (Accessed on April 22, 2013))
pirates have the added advantage of being able to easily slip in and out of
the territorial waters of the respective Littoral States in order to escape cap-
ture because any pursuing naval or coast guard vessel must cease its pursuit
at the relevant maritime boundary line between these three countries.22
As Nazery Khalid, a Senior Fellow at the Maritime Institute of Malaysia
observed, “[t]he sea doesn’t respect borders”,23 and neither do these pirates.
The Uncertain Nature and Extent of Piratical

Attacks Along the Malacca and Singapore Straits
According to the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a special-
ised arm of the United Nations that is responsible for the safety and secu-
rity of shipping24:
22
Tara Davenport, “Legal Measures to Combat Piracy and Armed Robbery in the Horn of
Africa and in Southeast Asia: A Comparison,” SCT, 35:7–8 (2012), p. 578.
23
Time Magazine (TM), April 22, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/
world/article/0,8599,1893032,00.html#ixzz2Ar9eGh00. (Accessed on April 22, 2013).
24
An agency of the United Nations, the IMO is tasked with promoting “safe, secure, envi-
ronmentally sound, efficient and sustainable shipping through cooperation…”, see IMO
[p]rior to 1989, the Malacca Strait was considered to be relatively safe.

About seven cases of piracy and armed robbery were reported annually from
the area, but in 1989, the figure rose to 28 and by 1991, it had gone up to
about 50 a year.25
Before examining the Littoral States’ responses to these attacks in the early
1990s, a little must be said at this point about the nature of these offences,
both in terms of our ability to determine its extent and distribution, as well
as the legal ramifications that accrue as a result of its occurrence (i.e. which
country has the criminal jurisdiction or power to pursue, arrest, prosecute
and punish these pirates). It will quickly become apparent as the analysis
unfolds, just how important these factors are when it comes to explain-
ing why engendering deeper forms of collaborative action between these
countries has been so challenging.
The crime of “piracy” cited above by the IMO refers to an offence
under international law—in this case being the 1982 UN Convention on
the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)—that encompasses:
(a) any illegal acts of violence or detention or any act of depredation, committed
for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private
aircraft, and directed:
(i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or
property on board such ship or aircraft; [or]
(ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the juris-
diction of any State;
[or]
(b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an air-

craft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate-ship or aircraft; [or]
(c) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in sub-
paragraph (a) or (b).26
Assembly Resolution A944 (23) (November 25, 2003). Retrieved from http://www.imo.
org/About/Pages/Default.aspx. (Accessed on April 23, 2013).
25
International Maritime Organization, “Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea,” Focus on
IMO, (2000), p. 3.
26
Article 101 of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), signed in
Montego Bay, Jamaica, December 10, 1982, in force on November 16, 1994, 1833 UNTS 3.
50 M.D. CHONG
Consequently, a piratical attack of this nature can technically only be com-

mitted in a very small section of the Malacca Straits which is considered
to be part of the high seas. Piracy jure gentium (i.e. piracy under the law
of nations) therefore represents a relatively insignificant share of the total
number of maritime depredations occurring there. As for the legal rami-
fications of such an attack, the flag state of the pirate ship will be allowed
to exercise normal criminal jurisdiction over the pirates.27 However, it is
also a “long established right—and, indeed, duty—of every State to act
against piracy”,28 and hence international law specifically permits a for-
eign state to “share legislative or enforcement jurisdiction, or both, with
the flag State.”29 In other words, extraordinary or universal jurisdiction is
conferred on every state to take whatever action they deem reasonable and
necessary to arrest the pirate ship30 and to prosecute the alleged pirates as
international criminals in their municipal courts.31
Other similar maritime crimes not falling under this category of “piracy”
would be classified as “armed robbery against ships” (what was before
2006, a strictly non-legal term of art).32 This was essentially a convenient
way of describing:
(a) any illegal act of violence or detention or any act of depredation, or

threat thereof, other than an act of piracy, committed for private
ends and directed against a ship or against persons or property on
board such a ship, within a State’s internal waters, archipelagic
waters and territorial sea; [or]
27
Article 6 of the 1958 Geneva Convention on the High Seas (HSC), signed in Geneva,
on April 29, 1958, in force on September 30, 1962, 450 UNTS 82; Article 92 of
UNCLOS. Secondary criminal jurisdiction is likewise shared with the state whose nationals
were responsible for the alleged acts of maritime violence, detention or depredation on the
high seas.
28
R. R. Churchill and A. V. Lowe, The Law of the Sea, 3rd ed. (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1999), p. 209.
29
Ibid.
30
Article 105 of UNCLOS.
31
The Lotus Case (1927) PCIJ Series A, No. 10, p. 70 (Judge Moore).
32
Article 1.2 of the 2004 Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and
Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia has since created a new offence of “armed robbery
against ships” under international law: see also Keyuan Zou, “New Developments in the
International Law of Piracy,” Chinese Journal of International Law 8:2 (2009), p. 327. Note
however that such an offence is only binding on the contracting state parties to this treaty.
Among the Littoral States, only Singapore is a signatory to this convention.
(b) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described

above.33
As such, most of the so-called “piratical” attacks committed along the

Malacca and Singapore Straits would actually fall under this rubric given
the probable locations where these crimes were committed i.e. the internal
and territorial seas of the Littoral States. As highlighted earlier, the flag
state will normally have exclusive jurisdiction over any maritime violence,
detention and depredation committed by vessels flying its flag on the high
seas.34 This power is never fully relinquished notwithstanding the fact that
the crime may have been perpetrated closer and closer to the shores of a
coastal state. In fact, a flag state still retains considerable jurisdiction over
its flagged ships as they traverse even the internal waters of a foreign coun-
try. Nevertheless, the flag state will have to share jurisdiction over such
offences with the coastal state (in this case being, Indonesia, Malaysia and
Singapore) when their flagged vessels commit armed robbery against ships
in the latter’s territorial, internal or archipelagic waters.35 Having said that
however, if these piratical vessels have not been registered (particularly
smaller crafts), or have been registered in flag-of-convenience states (who
are often not at all concerned about pursuing these pirates), then for all
intents and purposes, it will be the coastal states that will have de facto
“exclusive” jurisdiction over these offences.
While the above commentary may suggest that there is very little con-
troversy surrounding this matter, this could not be farther from the truth.
Notwithstanding the IMO’s statistics in this area, there has been a great
deal of uncertainty for many years as to how many piratical attacks have
actually been perpetrated in these waters.36 This was because numerous
news agencies, as well as significant segments of the shipping and mar-
itime insurance industries were using a different definition of ‘piracy’
33
International Maritime Organization Code of Practice for the Investigation of the
Crimes of Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships, Resolution A.922 (22), MSC Circular
984 (December 20, 2000) at para. 2.2.
34
Note however the exception of piracy jure gentium highlighted earlier.
35
Robert Beckman, “Combatting Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Southeast
Asia: The Way Forward,” Ocean Development and International Law (ODIL), 33(2002),
p. 320.
36
For a more developed argument concerning this issue, please refer to Zou, “New
Developments in the International Law of Piracy,” pp. 323–45.
52 M.D. CHONG
when referring to such depredations at sea.37 From its earliest piracy

reports, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) eschewed from using
a technically legal definition of this crime but instead adopted a more
expansive view of this offence. Since its first annual report in 1992, the
IMB through its Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
argued that:
[b]y definition, classical piracy is an act committed in the HIGH

SEAS. However, “classical” pirates have all come and gone and, these days,
the greater part of these crimes are committed within the territorial waters
of a sovereign state….Technicality of definition has little relevance in the
eyes of victims of piracy. The IMB classifies all similar acts together and are
therefore adopting the following as the definition of piracy:
“Piracy is an act of boarding any vessel with the intent to commit theft
or other crime and with the capability to use force in the furtherance of the
act.”38
Over the years (1992–2009), the IMB continued (albeit with some minor
modification after 2000) to maintain this extra-legal stance, and in its
2009 annual report, explained that:
[f]or statistical purposes, the IMB defines Piracy and Armed Robbery as;
“An act of boarding or attempting to board any ship with the apparent
intent to commit theft or any other crime and with the apparent intent or
capability to use force in the furtherance of that act”.
….The above definition has been adopted by the IMB as the majority of
attacks against ships take place within the jurisdictions of States and piracy as
defined under United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (1982) does
not address this aspect.39
What is also unclear is whether acts of maritime terrorism were included

in these statistics.40 The IMO’s definition of piracy and armed robbery
37
Adam J. Young, Contemporary Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia: History, Causes and
Remedies (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2007), p. 10.
38
International Maritime Bureau-Regional Piracy Centre (IMB-RPC), Piracy Report 1992
(Kuala Lumpur: IMB-RPC, 1993), p. 2 (emphasis contained in the original text).
39
ICC International Maritime Bureau (ICC-IMB), Piracy and Armed Robbery against
Ships Annual Report: 1 January –31 December 2009 (London: ICC-IMB, 2010), p. 3
[emphasis contained in the original text].
40
Zou, “New Developments in the International Law of Piracy,” p. 328.
against ships does not allow for the inclusion of maritime terrorism. This is
because the former require that they be committed for “private ends” and
not for political or “public” aims. The IMB’s definition of piracy however
does not have any such strictures and hence could conceivably encompass
maritime terrorists attacks.41 Unfortunately, the IMB reports do not gen-
erally provide that sort of information, and hence it would be impossible
to determine the extent of such acts using their statistics. Due to this
omission, any argument that terrorism posed a substantial threat to these
waters would be difficult, to say the least.
Notwithstanding this shortcoming, the IMB continued to exert signifi-
cant influence in the media and the shipping sector, and public discourse
concerning the piratical problem along the Malacca and Singapore Straits
during the relevant period (1992 to 2006) was dominated by this extra-
legal definition.42 Even among some academic circles, the IMB’s defini-
tion was considered to be a more progressive one as compared to the
IMO’s,43 although the IMB did conflate their version of “piracy” with that
of “armed robbery” so as to take into account the IMO’s new category
of quasi-piratical attacks i.e. “armed robbery against ships” in December
2000.44 As Young explained:
41
There is no specific crime of “maritime terrorism” under international law: see Natalie
Klein, Maritime Security and the Law of the Sea (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011),
pp. 147–8. That said, the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific Working
Group noted that such offences normally include “…acts and activities within the maritime
environment, using or against vessels or fixed platforms at sea or in port, or against any one
of their passengers or personnel, against coastal facilities or settlements, including tourist
resorts, port areas and port towns or cities”: see Antonio Guido Monno, “Piracy and
Terrorism, Threats to Maritime Security: A Brief Analysis,” in Silvia Ciotti Galletti, ed.,
Piracy and Maritime Terrorism: Logistics, Strategies, Scenarios (Amsterdam: IOS Press BV,
2012), p. 70.
42
Zou, op. cit., p. 327; Young, Contemporary Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia,
pp. 122–3.
43
Graham Gerard Ong-Webb, “Southeast Asian Piracy: Research and Developments,” in
Graham Gerard Ong-Webb, ed., Piracy, Maritime Terrorism and Securing the Malacca
Straits (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2006), pp. xii–xiii. There are also other differences
between the IMO’s definition of piracy and that used by the IMB. For more details, please
refer to Table 1, ibid., p. xiii.
44
ICC-IMB, Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships Annual Report: 1 January–31
December 2009 (London: ICC-IMB, 2010), p. 3. The IMB would finally adopt the IMO’s
legal definition in its 2010 piracy report: see ICC-IMB, Piracy and Armed Robbery against
Ships Annual Report: 1 January–31 December 2010 (2011), p. 3.
54 M.D. CHONG
[t]he IMB-PRC statistics have become ubiquitous in literature and media

dealing with piracy. The statistics coming out of the IMB are a driving force
in discussions of piracy, from policy literature to mass media….45
There was therefore considerable ambiguity as to the true extent of piracy

occurring in these waters because of the differing definitions used by com-
peting credible sources of such statistics (i.e. the IMO and the IMB).46
The significance of this dissonance was amply apparent to all the key stake-
holders—if high levels of “piracy” had occurred along these straits, not
only were the Littoral States legally obligated to protect these waters from
further depredation, all other nations were likewise empowered under
international law to exercise extraordinary or universal jurisdiction to
intervene along these channels,47 thereby presenting a serious challenge
to the Littoral States’ respective sovereign control over these maritime
domains. If however these acts of “piracy” were in reality “armed robbery
against ships” as the IMO argued, then the responsibility rested primar-
ily with the Littoral States (and the respective flag states of the piratical
vessels).
What was therefore problematic here was the use of the word “piracy”
by the media and various interested parties because it carried with it specific
legal consequences that would have facilitated the internationalising of the
straits—a development which Singapore welcomed but one that Indonesia
and Malaysia were profoundly against. It was thus not at all surprising
that these latter countries refused to join a number of US-sponsored naval
interdiction schemes, namely the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)48
in 2003 and the ill-fated Regional Maritime Security Initiative (RMSI) in
2004,49 on grounds that they contravened international law and, p erhaps
45
Young, op. cit., p. 10.
46
Another major actor that produces similar statistics has since emerged from the creation
of the Information Sharing Centre (ISC), the administrative headquarters for the 2004
Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in
Asia. The ISC also uses a slightly different definition of piracy to that of the IMO and the
IMB: see Zou, “New Developments in the International Law of Piracy,” p. 328.
47
Young, Contemporary Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia, p. 123.
48
United States Department of State, Proliferation Security Initiative. Retrieved from
http://www.state.gov/t/isn/c10390.htm. (Accessed on May 12, 2013).
49
Admiral Thomas Fargo, Statement before the House Armed Services Committee, in the
United States, March 31, 2004. Retrieved from http://www.defenselink.mil/dodgc/olc/
docs/test04-03-31Fargo.doc. (Accessed on April 22, 2013).
more importantly, would ultimately erode their national sovereignty.50

This reluctance to allow foreign countries to intervene in their waters
even led to the ostensible rejection51 of a jointly sponsored IMO-Austrian-
Italian-Egyptian treaty that addressed maritime terrorism i.e. the 1988
Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of
Maritime Navigation (SUA Convention).52 Indonesia and Malaysia have
been equally wary of Asian-led initiatives, and to date have not ratified the
2004 Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed
Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP), a multilateral initiative spear-
headed by the Japanese, and currently administered in Singapore.53
These were therefore some of the statistical and jurisdictional difficul-
ties that policy makers in the Littoral States had to contend with as they
tried to formulate their countries’ respective interventional platforms.
Given how influential the IMB’s statistics were during the relevant period
from 1992 to 2006, this article will similarly employ the IMB’s definition
of piracy (and armed robbery) in the ensuing analysis.54
50
Jakarta Post (JP), June10, 2006. Retrieved from http://www.thejakartapost.com/
news/2006/06/10/psi-not-discussed.html?1. (Accessed on May 1, 2013); Rachel Baird,
“Transnational Security Issues in the Asian Maritime Environment: Responding to Maritime
Piracy,” Australian Journal of International Affairs (AJIA) 66:5 (2012), p. 507.
51
Indonesia and Malaysia still remain outside the fold despite their declaration pursuant to
the ASEAN Regional Forum Piracy Statement in 2003 that they would ratify the convention
as soon as possible: see Para. 2 of the ASEAN Regional Forum Statement on Cooperation
against Piracy and other Threats to Security, June 17, 2003. Retrieved from http://aseanre-
gionalforum.asean.org/library/arf-chairmans-statements-and-reports/172.html. (Accessed
on April 24, 2013).
52
Signed in Rome, Italy, March 10, 1988, in force March 1, 1992, 1678 UNTS 221. The
1988 Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Fixed Platforms
Located on the Continental Shelf, signed in Rome, Italy, March 10, 1988, in force March 1,
1992, 1678 UNTS 304, extends the requirements of this treaty to fixed platforms such as
those engaged in the exploitation of offshore oil and gas. This treaty is also known as the
Rome Convention.
53
ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre (ReCAAP-ISC), The Seventh Governing Council
Meeting of the ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre (ISC) (Singapore: ReCAAP-ISC,
2013). Retrieved from http://www.recaap.org/Portals/0/docs/2013-03-07%20Press%20
Release.pdf. (Accessed on April 22, 2013). This treaty came into force on September 4,
2006.
54
Joshua Ho, “The Importance and Security of Regional Sea Lanes,” in Kwa Chong Guan
and John K. Skogan, eds, Maritime Security in Southeast Asia (London: Routledge, 2007),
p. 25.
56 M.D. CHONG
First Wave: The Littoral States’ Collaborative

Responses from 1992 to 1998
The sheer complexity involved in suppressing piratical activity, in the cir-
cumstances outlined above, soon made it evident to the Littoral States that
their unilateral responses were woefully inadequate to reduce the sever-
ity of the problem. Consequently, the Indonesia-Singapore Coordinated
Patrols (ISCP) framework was set up in July 1992 so as to suppress piracy
along the Singapore Strait.55 The ISCP conducted coordinated patrols
along this waterway on a quarterly basis and established direct links
between the two naval commands.56 A degree of formalisation occurred
later in September 1992 when an agreement was entered into by these
two states57 that required them to render each other mutual assistance
in the event that a pirate vessel was likely to attempt escape by cross-
ing into the other’s territorial waters.58 In addition, the quality of the
information exchanged between the two navies was enhanced by ensuring
that its communications channel was maintained round-the-clock and the
data conveyed in real-time.59 This promising development was soon fol-
lowed by Indonesia and Malaysia forming a Maritime Operation Planning
Team (MOPT) under their joint General Border Committee in December
199260 to conduct similar coordinated patrols but this time along the
Strait of Malacca.61 Its initial success in suppressing piracy and armed rob-
bery in these waters62 subsequently led to a proliferation of such bilateral
cooperative endeavours between Malaysia-Thailand, Malaysia-Philippines,
55
Ho, Security, p. 2.
Chris Rahman, “Naval Cooperation and Coalition Building in Southeast Asia and the
Southwest Pacific: Status and Prospects,” Royal Australian Navy: Sea Power Centre and
Centre of Maritime Policy (University of Wollongong) Working Paper, No. 7 (2001), p. 38.
56
Emmers, Non-traditional, p. 47.
57
Beckman, “Combatting Piracy and Armed Robbery,” p. 330.
58
Peter Chalk, Grey-Area Phenomena in Southeast Asia: Piracy, Drug Trafficking and
Political Terrorism (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National
University, 1997, p. 88.
59
Ibid.
60
Hasjim Djalal, “Combating Piracy: Co-operation Needs, Efforts and Challenges,” in
Derek Johnson and Mark Valencia, eds, Piracy in Southeast Asia: Status, Issues and Responses
(Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2005), p. 149.
61
Chalk, op. cit., p. 24; Emmers, Non-traditional, p. 47.
62
Sumihiko Kawamura, “Regional Cooperation Against Piracy and Armed Robbery At
Sea,” in Douglas Johnston and Ankara Sirivivatnanon, eds, Ocean Governance and Sustainable
Development in the Pacific Region: Selected Papers, Commentaries and Comments Presented to
Indonesia-Philippines and Thailand-Vietnam.63 On the non-military front,

Malaysia and Singapore also set up a link between their civilian police
forces in order to facilitate information exchange and to provide each
other with a forum to discuss and strategise complementary policies to
address transborder maritime criminal activity.64 This arrangement how-
ever did not include instituting any coordinated anti-piracy police patrols.
Second Wave: The Littoral States’ Collaborative

Responses from 1999 to 2006
Nevertheless, despite their collaborative efforts, piratical outbreaks along
the Malacca and Singapore Straits resumed with even greater intensity in
1999 and 2000, culminating in a total of 96 attacks within that 2-year
time frame.65 In the succeeding four years, the Malacca Straits suffered
a further 99 acts of piracy and armed robbery; and the Singapore Straits
an additional 22.66 Chalk and Hansen categorised these attacks into three
classes of increasing seriousness, and described them as follows:
• anchorage thefts of ships at harbour67;

• ransacking of vessels in territorial waters or on the high seas68; and
• outright hijacking of ships.69
In order to deal with this resurgent problem, the Littoral States then
organised the MALSINDO Malacca Straits Coordinated Patrol or as it was
the SEAPOL Inter-Regional Conference Held in Bangkok on March 21–23, 2001 (Bangkok:
SEAPOL, 2002), pp. 344–5.
63
Rahman, “Naval Cooperation and Coalition Building,” pp. 38–9; Chalk, Grey-Area
Phenomena, pp. 88–9; Emmers, Non-traditional, pp. 46–8.
64
Djalal, “Combating Piracy”, pp. 149–50.
65
Jayant Abhyankar, “Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships – An Overview,” in
Douglas Johnston and Ankara Sirivivatnanon, eds, Ocean Governance and Sustainable
Development in the Pacific Region: Selected Papers, Commentaries and Comments Presented to
the SEAPOL Inter-Regional Conference Held in Bangkok on March 21–23, 2001 (Bangkok:
SEAPOL, 2002), p. 326; ICC-IMB, 2006, p. 5.
66
ICC-IMB, 2005, p. 5; ICC-IMB, 2006, p. 5.
67
Peter Chalk and Stig Jarle Hansen, “Present Day Piracy: Scope, Dimensions, Dangers,
and Causes,” SCT 35:7–8 (2012), p. 499.
68
Ibid.
69
Ibid., p. 500.
58 M.D. CHONG
renamed later, the Malacca Strait Sea Patrol (MSSP), on July 20, 2004.70
The MSSP used a year-round (as opposed to a quarterly scheduled) coor-
dinated patrol system over a joint patrol arrangement as this prevented
the need to decide which of the Littoral States should have command and
control over the seconded warships.71 This decentralised approach permit-
ted each state to manage its warships within their respective territorial
waters.72 However, a 24-hour hotline linked these three naval commands
together, thereby allowing them to effectively coordinate their efforts to
capture pirate vessels through “hot hand-offs” at the border.73 The MSSP
however rejected the option of conferring a legal right of hot pursuit to
a participating Littoral State warship—a right that would have allowed
the said vessel to apprehend a pirate ship within the territorial waters of
another Littoral State74—because of the possibility that such incursions
could be used as pretexts for spying, reconnaissance or even a first strike.
To supplement the MSSP, the Littoral States (including Thailand from
September 2008 onwards) started conducting cooperative air patrols over
these troubled straits on September 13, 2005.75 Codenamed “Eyes in the
Sky” (EiS), this collaborative endeavour was intended to instil confidence
among the User States of the straits as well as the numerous other non-state
and sub-state parties whose interests also lay in securing this important
channel. To prevent any unnecessary suspicion between the participant
states, each country’s air force only patrolled the airspace above the straits
and was not allowed to fly overland into foreign territory.76 Yet, this was
still an improvement over the arrangements under the MSSP since these
assigned aircrafts were permitted to “fly above the waters of the states in
question no less than three nautical miles from land.”77 In addition to this,
70
Mak, “Unilateralism and Regionalism,” pp. 155–6. MALSINDO was renamed the
“Malacca Straits Sea Patrol” sometime in April 2006.
71
Ibid.
72
Ibid.
73
Ho, Importance, p. 30.
74
Usually the doctrine of “hot pursuit” only allows the coastal state’s authorised vessel to
pursue the offending ship from its own internal waters, archipelagic waters, territorial sea or
contiguous zone onto the high seas or its Exclusive Economic Zone: see Article 111 of the
1982 UNCLOS.
75
Ralf Emmers, “The Five Power Defence Arrangements and Defence Diplomacy in
Southeast Asia,” Asian Security (AS) 8:3 (2012), p. 277.
76
Ho, Importance, p. 30.
77
Ibid.
every plane under the EiS was staffed by a Combined Maritime Patrol
Team that was made up of an officer from each of the Littoral States.78
As seen in Table 4.1 below, it is certainly arguable that the implementa-
tion of the MSSP, EiS and the creation of an Intelligence Exchange Group
(in 2006)79 by the Littoral States led to a real reductions of piratical and
armed robbery attacks occurring along the Malacca and Singapore Straits.
Nonetheless, there is still a compelling argument that these initiatives
represent relatively weak forms of collaborative partnerships as com-
pared to the more substantive cooperative frameworks that Indonesia and
Malaysia have specifically rejected. These would include, for example,
• their unwillingness to allow foreign warships to pursue pirate vessels

fleeing into their territorial seas under an enhanced version of the
doctrine of “hot pursuit”80;
• their rejection of joint naval patrols;
• their refusal to sign and/or ratify the 1988 SUA Convention as well
as the 2004 ReCAAP; and
• their wariness of being a part of the multilateral and US-led PSI and
the RMSI.81
Given that there remains significant room for more meaningful and
effective collaborative endeavours between the Littoral States, it is
extremely important that we persist in our interrogation of these issues for
the reasons that will be discussed in greater detail below.
Why Is There a Need for Continued Scrutiny if

These Maritime Attacks Have Decreased?
Firstly, as outlined earlier, the initial suppression of piracy along the
Malacca and Singapore Straits in the early part of the 1990s through the
use of the ISCP and the MOPT were insufficient to prevent a resurgence
of these crimes in the late 1990s. Who is to say, that despite the current
78
Ibid.
79
Emmers, Five Power Defence, p. 277. These three elements were subsequently combined
to form the Malacca Straits Patrols (MSP).
80
Ethan C. Stiles, “Reforming Current International Law to Combat Modern Sea Piracy,”
Suffolk Transnational Law Review (STLR), 27 (2004), pp. 320–1.
81
These initiatives deal with preventing the illegal proliferation of Weapons of Mass
Destruction as well as maritime terrorism respectively.
60
M.D. CHONG
Table 4.1 Actual and attempted piratical attacks along the Malacca and Singapore Straits from January 1, 1999 to
December 31, 2012a
Location 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Malacca 2 75 17 16 28 38 12 11 7 2 2 2 1 2
Strait
Singapore 14 5 7 5 2 8 7 5 3 6 9 3 11 6
Strait
Total 16 80 24 21 30 46 19 16 10 8 11 5 12 8
a
ICC-IMB, 2005, p. 5; ICC-IMB, 2006, p. 5; ICC-IMB, Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships Annual Report: 1 January 2012 – 31 December 2012,
London: ICC-IMB, 2013, p. 5
lull (circa 2012, see Table 4.1), this may not occur again in the next few
years, thereby necessitating new solutions and not simply a regurgitation
of old remedies?82
Secondly, when Indonesia and Malaysia remained steadfast in their
rejection of some of the more extensive collaborative measures, they did
so at the height of these maritime attacks (1999–2006), and hence faced
great diplomatic and commercial pressure from many quarters (for exam-
ple, the IMB, the IMO, the shipping community, the insurance industry,
Japan, the USA, India and Singapore, just to name few). Consequently,
uncovering the underlying reasons for their entrenched resistance or apa-
thy will ultimately deepen our understanding of the impediments that
policy makers and diplomats will have to overcome if they want to achieve
more effective inter-state collaborative relationships.
Institutional Frameworks that Encourage Inter-

State Cooperation
This discussion however does not occur tabula rasa as there were already
a range of institutional frameworks which purported to facilitate such
cooperative endeavours. While not an exhaustive list, the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asia-
Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC), the IMO, the Five Power
Defence Arrangements (FPDA) and the Cooperation Afloat Readiness
and Training exercise (CARAT), have all contributed positively towards
building maritime security capacity and architecture in this region.83 There
were also a number of legal regimes that encouraged or facilitated this
development, and they would include, for example:
• the 1974 Safety of Life at Sea Convention (SOLAS)84 that incorpo-

rates the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS
Code);
82
Ian Storey, “Maritime Security in Southeast Asia: Two Cheers for Regional Cooperation,”
in Daljit Singh, ed., Southeast Asian Affairs 2009 (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2009),
p. 44.
83
Shishir Upadhyaya, “Malacca Straits Security Initiative: Potential for Indian navy’s par-
ticipation in the evolving regional security environment,” Maritime Affairs: Journal of the
National Maritime Foundation of India (MA) 5:2 (2010), pp. 47–67.
84
Signed in London, November 1, 1974, in force 25 May 25, 1980, 1184 UNTS 2;
Presidential Decree No. 65/1980 with effect from May 17, 1981; Lembaga Negara No.
62 M.D. CHONG
• Article 43 of UNCLOS that provides the Littoral States with a legal

platform upon which to create anti-pollution and navigational safety
agreements along the Malacca and Singapore Straits;
• Article 100 of UNCLOS, which stipulates that “[a]ll States shall co-
operate to the fullest possible extent in the repression of piracy on
the high seas or in any other place outside the jurisdiction of any
State”; and
• a coastal state’s duty to suppress piracy within its waters under cus-
tomary international law. According to Sundberg, a state is obligated
under customary law to suppress maritime piracy within its territorial
and internal waters.85 To that end, Schwarzenberger argued that if a
state were to fail to properly discharge that duty it would be exposed
to tortious action, and in extreme cases, even the forfeiture of its
international personality.86 An errant state is similarly exposed to
civil suit if it cannot reasonably protect foreigners from harm within
its borders,87 and this would include foreign flagged ships travers-
ing its coastal waters.88 In order to avoid these legal repercussions,
a state will have to take reasonable care and due diligence to pro-
tect foreigners within waters under its jurisdiction and for Indonesia
and Malaysia, this may include having to consider accepting “offers
of extra-regional assistance [as well as] allowing for cross-border
patrols….”89
However, such scaffolding structures have unfortunately failed to suf-

ficiently reassure or encourage the Littoral States to engage in the more
substantive or extraordinary forms of collective action outlined earlier.
65/1980; Swan Sik Ko, The Indonesian Law of Treaties 1945–1990, Dordrecht: Martinus
Nijhoff Publishers, 1994, p. 90. For status of conventions, please refer to the following web-
site: http://www.imo.org/About/Conventions/StatusOfConventions/Pages/Default.
aspx. (Accessed on April 22, 2013).
85
John Sundberg, “Piracy: Air and Sea,” De Paul Law Review (DePLW), 20 (1970),
p. 385.
86
Georg Schwarzenberger, “The Problem of an International Criminal Law,” Current
Legal Problems (CLP), 3 (1950), p. 269.
87
Robert Yewdall Jennings and Arthur Watts, eds, Oppenheim’s International Law: Volume
1: Peace: Intro & Part 1, 9th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 166.
88
The Corfu Channel Case (Merits) (1949) ICJ Rep 4.
89
Tammy M. Sittnick, “State Responsibility and Maritime Terrorism in the Straits of
Malacca: Persuading Indonesia and Malaysia to Take Additional Steps to Secure the Straits,”
Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal (PRLPJ), 14 (2005), pp. 764–5.
This failure by Indonesia and Malaysia to adopt radically collaborative

measures in order to suppress these crimes actually creates an extremely
fertile ground upon which to employ a security analysis because piracy and
maritime terrorism have often been described as serious non-traditional
threats to national security—what Peter Chalk labelled as being a “grey-
area phenomenon”.90 Chalk explained that grey-area phenomena were
“threats to the stability of sovereign states by non-state actors [for exam-
ple, pirates and maritime terrorists] and non-governmental processes and
organisations.”91 Details of this theoretical scheme will be discussed in
greater detail below.
The Analytical Framework

The Copenhagen School uses security analytical tools to delve into areas
not commonly thought of as falling within the normal ambit of tradi-
tional security studies. In their “new framework for analysis”, traditional
military issues are studied alongside other non-traditional threats to secu-
rity.92 For example, Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde identified four other sec-
tors of equal concern—environmental, economic, societal and political.93
Widening the scope in this manner was only made possible when security
analysts from around the world began to acknowledge the policy-making
“vacuum” that had been created at the conclusion of the Cold War in
the late 1980s. International politics was no longer dominated by United
States-Soviet Union ideological contestation and as a result, some scholars
suggested studying the impact alternative threats had to the security of
individuals, groups and even the international community as a whole.94
This would include transborder environmental pollution, the pandemic
transmission of infectious diseases, and international/transnational crime
and terrorism.95
90
Chalk, Grey-Area Phenomena in Southeast Asia, pp. 23–39.
91
Ibid., p. 5.
92
Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis
(Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998), pp. 21–3; see also Barry Buzan and Ole
Wæver, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003).
93
Ibid., pp. 71–162.
94
Emmers, Non-traditional, p. 2.
95
R. J. E. Parsons, “Climate Change: The Hottest Issue in Security Studies?” Risk,
Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy 1:1 (2010), pp. 87–116; Adam Kamradt-Scott and Colin
64 M.D. CHONG
In similar vein, piracy, armed robbery and maritime terrorism have all
been identified by many security experts as representing a serious non-
traditional threat to national security.96 William Carpenter and David
Wiencek warned the security community as well as governments not
to underestimate the devastating consequences such unabated offences
would have on the region’s strategic and geo-political environment.97
The potential conflation of piracy and maritime terrorism also heightened
the risk of the security threat, especially if nuclear weapons (i.e. “dirty
bombs”) were to be deployed by non-state terrorist actors against civilian
targets and infrastructure.98
In order to avoid attenuating the concept of “non-traditional security”
to such an extent that it would unreasonably envelop every kind of social,
economic, political, military and environmental problem that plagued the
world, Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde took specific steps to limit the reach of
their approach so as to address this potential criticism. To them, security
is primarily concerned with survival—when a “securitising actor” presents
an issue to a target audience, for example, policy makers, industry leaders,
politicians, and/or the public, as “posing an existential threat to a desig-
nated referent object (traditionally, but not necessarily, the state, incorpo-
rating government, territory, and society).”99 These “existential threats”
may fall within one or a number of the five security sectors listed earlier.
There are therefore four main actors/entities involved in this ana-
lytical framework.100 Firstly, there are the “securitising actors”. They are
entities “who securitize issues by declaring something–a referent object–
McInnes, “The Securitisation of Pandemic Influenza: Framing, Security and Public Policy,”
Global Public Health: An International Journal for Research, Policy and Practice (GPH),
2012, pp. 1–16; Jonathan Bright, “Securitisation, Terror, and Control: Towards a Theory of
the Breaking Point,” Review of International Studies (RIS), 38 (2012), pp. 861–79.
96
Tsvetkova, pp. 44–63; Vreÿ, pp. 54–66; Emmers, Non-traditional, pp. 35–60; Adam
J. Young, “Roots of Contemporary Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia,” in Derek Johnson
and Mark Valencia, eds, Piracy In Southeast Asia: Status, Issues, and Responses (Singapore:
ISEAS Publishing, 2005), p. 1, n2.
97
William M. Carpenter and David G. Wiencek, “Maritime Piracy in Asia,” in William
M. Carpenter and David G. Wiencek, eds, Asian Security Handbook: An Assessment of
Political-Security Issues in the Asia-Pacific Region (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), p. 79.
98
Rob McLaughlin, “Terrorism as a Central Theme in the Evolution of Maritime
Operations Law since 11 September 2001,” Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law
(YIHL), 14 (2011), p. 393.
99
Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, p. 21.
100
Ibid., pp. 25 and 35.
existentially threatened.”101 Secondly, “referent objects” are “things that

are seen to be existentially threatened and that have a legitimate claim
to survival.”102 Thirdly, though not mentioned earlier, there are also
“functional actors” at play, entities who are neither securitising actors
nor referent objects but nonetheless possess significant influence over the
decision-making process in the relevant security sector.103 Fourthly, there
is the presence of a relevant audience whose acceptance is necessary before
the securitising process is considered complete and successful.104
“Security” to these authors is consequently a tool that once activated
justifies the use of extraordinary measures to handle them…[B]y saying

“security,” a state representative declares an emergency condition, thus
claiming a right to use whatever means are necessary to block a threatening
development.105
This “threatening development” may initially begin as a non-politicised

issue106 and later escalate to the extent that it becomes politicised.107 If
it continues to spiral and the securitising actor deems it necessary, the
politicised issue may then become securitised, this last stage being a “more
extreme version of politicization.”108 The securitising of this threatening
development however is performed through a self-referential practice109
that “takes politics beyond the established rules of the game and frames the
issue either as a special kind of politics or as above politics.”110 This practice
was described by Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde as a “securitising move”,111 a
process that is in essence a rhetorical structure—a language theory—called
101
Ibid., p. 36.
102
Ibid.
103
Ibid.
104
Ibid., p. 25.
105
Ibid., p. 21.
106
A non-politicised issue is one that the state does not want to address and “it is not in any
other way made an issue of public debate and decision….”, ibid., p. 23.
107
A politicised issue is one that is “part of public policy, requiring government decision and
resource allocations or, more rarely, some other form of communal governance”, ibid.,
p. 23.
108
Ibid.
109
Ibid.
110
Ibid.
111
Ibid., p. 25.
66 M.D. CHONG
a “speech act”.112 As the authors clarified, it was the utterance itself that
was the act.113 It was through this speech act or self-referential practice
“that the issue becomes a security issue–not necessarily because a real exis-
tential threat exists but because the issue is presented as such a threat.”114
Conceived primarily as a socially constructed concept, Buzan, Wæver and
de Wilde pointed out that there was really no necessity to
peek behind this to decide whether it is really a threat (which would reduce
the entire securitization approach to a theory of perceptions and mispercep-
tions). Security is a quality actors inject into issues by securitizing them,
which means to stage them on the political arena in the specific way [as set
out earlier by the authors in their book]….115
Nonetheless, a politicised issue only becomes securitised when the rel-

evant target audience to which the securitising move is directed at accepts
it as such.116 The threshold for such acceptance is not especially high and
will be satisfied if enough “resonance” is generated,
for a platform to be made from which it is possible to legitimize emergency

measures or other steps that would not have been possible had the discourse
not taken the form of existential threats, point of no return, and necessity.117
A successful speech act however generally requires certain facilitating con-

ditions to be fulfilled and/or be present.118 Firstly, there are the internal
conditions of a speech act. This would necessitate the adopting of the
appropriate:
security form, the grammar of security, and [to] construct a plot that
includes existential threat, point of no return, and a possible way out—the
general grammar of security as such plus the particular dialects of the dif-
ferent sectors, such as talk identity in the societal sector, recognition and
sovereignty in the political sector, sustainability in the environmental sector,
and so on.119
112
Ibid., p. 26.
113
Ibid.
114
Ibid., p. 23.
115
Ibid., p. 204 [Emphasis contained in the original text].
116
Ibid., p. 25.
117
Ibid.
118
Ibid., p. 32.
119
Ibid., pp. 32–3.
Secondly, there are the external, contextual and social factors of a speech
act to consider as well.120 These would include whether the securitising
actor has sufficient authority (or credibility) and social capital that it can
leverage upon with the target audience such that the latter would be more
inclined towards accepting the proposition that a security threat does
indeed exist.121 In addition to this, the existence of a type of evidence that
the target audience would, under normal circumstances, find credible and
threatening, can likewise be very facilitative.122 The more “real” the threat,
the greater the likelihood the target audience will accept the securitising
actor’s assertion that the survival of the referent object is indeed threatened.
As the above summary clearly illustrates, the analytical framework here
is both socially constructed (i.e. the securitising act) and intersubjective in
nature since a successful securitisation act is ultimately dependent upon an
external arbiter—the audience—having the same shared understanding of
the existential threat as the securitising actor.123
Securitising Piracy, Armed Robbery and Maritime

Terrorism Along the Malacca and the Singapore
Straits
The securitisation of any issue is therefore a dynamic constructivist process
that involves complex intersubjective interaction between a range of dif-
ferent participants. Consequently, this study will require a detailed exami-
nation of the following elements:
• the Securitising Actor;

• the Referent Object;
• the Functional Actors;
• the Target Audience; and finally
• the Speech Act itself.
Once this process has been completed, the quality of the speech act will
thereafter be assessed and the level of generated resonance evaluated in
order to determine whether the perceived existential threat was or was not
successfully securitised.
120
Ibid., p. 32.
121
Ibid., p. 33.
122
Ibid.
123
Ibid., pp. 30–1.
68 M.D. CHONG
Identifying the Securitising Actor

The Singapore government has long been a vocal advocate for greater col-
laborative action between the Littoral States inter se, as well as with other
nations, so as to secure the Malacca and Singapore Straits from pirati-
cal attacks.124 This country has been fully committed towards protecting
the portions of the Malacca and Singapore Straits within its jurisdiction
with not only the requisite material resources like aircrafts, naval vessels,
personnel, and excellent port facilities, but has also supplemented these
with a raft of legislative and treaty instruments that specifically address
the issue of maritime violence, detention and depredation.125 It stands
alone among the Littoral States as having signed and ratified the 1988
SUA Convention and the 2004 ReCAAP. In the latter case, Singapore
was even selected to be the site for its administrative headquarters—the
Information Sharing Centre (ISC). In addition to this, Singapore has wel-
comed foreign assistance in patrolling these straits, much to the chagrin of
Indonesia and Malaysia. Singapore has likewise been a staunch supporter
of a number of US-led interdiction programmes, in particular, the PSI and
the RMSI. Both of these non-treaty based collaborative platforms seek
to prevent the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD),
particularly because of the fear that these WMD could fall into the hands
of maritime terrorists and allow them to construct “floating dirty bombs”
that can then be deployed to devastating effect in key sea lane chokepoints
or port areas.126 Thus, within maritime security discourse, Singapore views
itself as the principal securitising actor among the Littoral States.127
Identifying the Referent Object

According to Emmers, piratical activity along the Malacca and Singapore
Straits represented a significant non-traditional security threat to the
region that overlapped a number of different security domains.128
124
Emmers, Non-traditional, pp. 41–42.
125
Zou, “New Developments in the International Law of Piracy,” pp. 338–9.
126
McLaughlin, “Terrorism as a Central Theme,” p. 393; Richardson, A Time Bomb for
Global Trade, pp. 49–64.
127
Allison Casey and Matthew Sussex, “Energy Transit States and Maritime Security in the
Malacca Straits: The Case of Singapore,” Australian Journal of Maritime and Ocean Affairs
(AJMOA) 4:1 (2012), pp. 25–36.
128
Emmers, Non-traditional.
Military Sector While there have been no attacks involving the use of
radiological or bio-chemical detonative devices, yet even without such
sophisticated weaponry, pirates and maritime terrorists still posed a
daunting challenge for the navies and police forces of the Littoral States.
Although not committed within their waters, the sinking of SuperFerry 14
in the Philippines by an operative associated with the Abu Sayyaf (a guer-
rilla organisation with links to Jemaah Islamiyah and Al Qaeda) in 2004
resulted in the deaths of 116 innocent civilians.129 Closer to home, politi-
cal insurgents from Aceh were regularly exercising perceived belligerent
rights (described by many as being acts of piracy or terrorism) over waters
along the northern entrance of the Malacca Straits.130 These depredations
amounted to an unequivocal usurpation of Indonesia’s territorial sover-
eignty thereby necessitating from its government a concerted military and
naval response.131 Even Singapore, through its security branch and mili-
tary forces, only narrowly averted a terrorist attack committed by Jemaah
Islamiyah sleeper cells (which had links to the Abu Sayaff and the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front) against US naval personnel and vessels based in
its facilities in 2001.132
Political Sector As highlighted in the previous section, piratical and mari-

time terrorist attacks within the region could have been used to destabi-
lise the governments of the Littoral States, particularly because Jemaah
Islamiyah, the Abu Sayaff and the Al Qaeda had stationed and/or were
cultivating operatives in all three countries, with the aim of violently creat-
ing a pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia.133
129
Time Magazine, August 23. 2004. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/maga-
zine/article/0,9171,686107,00.html. (Accessed on May 7, 2013).
130
Mak, Unilateralism, pp. 151–2; Mark J. Valencia, “The Politics of Anti-Piracy and Anti-
Terrorism Responses in Southeast Asia,” in Graham Gerard Ong-Webb, ed., Piracy,
Maritime Terrorism and Securing the Malacca Straits (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2006),
p. 85.
131
Acehnese maritime depredations have since dissipated after: (1) the Gerakan Aceh
Merdeka separatist movement entered into a peace accord with the Indonesian government
in 2005; and (2) the subsequent arrest of its principal naval commander, Rusli Bin Abdul
Gani, in 2007: von Hoesslin, p. 545.
132
Ministry of Home Affairs, White Paper: The Jemaah Islamiyah Arrests and the Threat of
Terrorism, Cmd. No. 2 of 2003 (Singapore: Ministry of Home Affairs, 2003).
133
Jakarta Post (JP), May 8, 2003. Retrieved from http://www.thejakartapost.com/
news/2003/05/08/police-say-bali-bombing-path-islamic-state.html. (Accessed on May 8,
2013); The Star (Malaysia), November17, 2005. Retrieved from http://thestar.com.my/
70 M.D. CHONG
Economic Sector While a major blockage of these crucial SLOCs would

severely impact global trade because of its tremendous volume of vessel
traffic every day,134 the specific consequences to Singapore would be even
more catastrophic. There is every possibility that because it is so trade-
dependent, any long-term closure would pose a significant threat to the
economic wellbeing of Singapore,135 perhaps even to its very core exis-
tence given that it is a relatively small island state with very little land mass
and even less lucrative natural resources at its disposal.
Environmental Sector Although the clean-up costs for chemical and fuel
spills as a result of the intentional or accidental sinking of fuel tankers and
carriers by pirates would be exorbitantly high,136 that would however pale
in comparison if maritime terrorists succeeded in detonating a nuclear or
biological device along the Malacca and Singapore Straits.137 In such an
unfortunate event, a “tsunami” effect will be felt across all the other secu-
rity sectors as well.
Identifying the Functional Actors

Key players capable of exerting considerable influence in the securitising
process would include: the various naval commands (as disaggregated or
sub-state entities) involved in anti-piratical exercises along the Malacca
and Singapore Straits; regional maritime police and/or coast guard units;
relevant international organisations like the IMO, ISC and ASEAN; pri-
vate security companies offering their services to protect vessels traversing
these channels138; and institutions that are involved in the shipping, insur-
news/story.asp?file=/2005/11/17/nation/20051117163342&sec=nation. (Accessed on
May 8, 2013); The Star (Malaysia), February 2, 2006. Retrieved from http://thestar.com.
my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/2/2/nation/13280284&sec=nation. (Accessed on May 8,
2013).
134
Maritime Department of Malaysia. Retrieved from http://www.marine.gov.my/ser-
vice/statistik/BKP/Stat%202010/Stat%20Pergerakan%20kapal%202001-2010.pdf.
(Accessed on September 1, 2012).
135
Richardson, A Time Bomb for Global Trade, p. 39.
136
Ibid., pp. 41–5.
137
Ibid., pp. 51–60.
138
Carolin Liss, “Private Military and Security Companies in the Fight against Piracy in
Southeast Asia,” in Graham Gerard Ong-Webb, ed., Piracy, Maritime Terrorism and Securing
the Malacca Straits (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2006), p. 103.
ance or supply chain/logistics industries, for example, Lloyd’s Market

Association and the IMB.
Identifying the Target Audience

As Tammy Sittnick cogently argued, the actors who needed to be per-
suaded most into taking extraordinary steps to secure the Straits of
Malacca were the policy makers in Indonesia and Malaysia, being the
other two other Littoral States bordering this channel.139 And she was not
alone in her assessment.140 While Indonesia and Malaysia were signatories
to the 1982 UNCLOS and had implemented the 2004 ISPS Code under
the 1974 SOLAS, they have however refused to accede to the 1988 SUA
Convention and the 2004 ReCAAP. They have also consistently rejected
foreign help in the form of joint naval patrols or of allowing foreign war-
ships to assist in securing their waters.141
Identifying the Speech Act

In their effort to securitise the issue, various high-ranking members from
the Singapore government made a number of public statements or speech
acts concerning the following matters:
(a) the importance of the Straits of Malacca and the Singapore Straits
to the global economy, in general, and to Singapore, in
particular142;
(b) the conflation of piracy and maritime terrorism143;
(c) the seriousness of the threat posed by pirates and terrorists to the
safety of these important SLOCs144; and
139
Sittnick, “State Responsibility and Maritime Terrorism.”
140
Erik Barrios, “Casting a Wider Net: Addressing the Maritime Piracy Problem in
Southeast Asia,” Boston College International and Comparative Law Review (BCICLR), 28
(2005); Mak, Unilateralism.
141
That said, the Littoral States have allowed Indian and US naval warships to escort US
ships carrying “high-value” cargo. This arrangement however does not permit foreign joint
naval patrols along the Malacca and Singapore Straits: The Hindu (India), April 23, 2002.
Retrieved from http://hindu.com/2002/04/23/stories/2002042302911100.htm.
(Accessed on May 12, 2013).
142
Casey and Sussex, “Energy Transit States,” pp. 28–9.
143
Tan, “The Emergence of Naval Power,” pp. 120–1.
144
Casey and Sussex, op. cit., pp. 29–31; Hong, “Charting a Maritime Security Cooperation
Mechanism,” pp. 404–5.
72 M.D. CHONG
(d) the need for greater cooperation not only between the Littoral
States but with the international community-at-large to suppress
piracy and to prevent maritime terrorism from being perpetrated
along these regional straits used for international navigation.145
Examples of speech acts made during the relevant period in each of the
above categories will be considered below.
On the Importance of These Straits to Global Trade in General,

and to Singapore, in Particular
In a speech given at the opening ceremony of the International Maritime
Defence Exhibition and Conference (IMDEX) 2003, Rear-Admiral (NS)
Teo Chee Hean, Singapore’s Defence Minister (as he then was), stressed
the crucial role carriage of goods by sea played in modern global com-
merce with “[u]p to 80 per cent of the approximately 6 billion metric
tons of cargo traded each year … moved by ship.”146 Consequently, any
disruption in the SLOC within the Straits of Malacca would have both
economic as well as strategic ramifications.147
At the 2004 Launching Ceremony of the frigate RSS Formidable, Rear-
Admiral (NS) Teo, on this occasion highlighted the seriousness of the
threat maritime terrorism would have on Singapore’s economic surviv-
al.148 He observed that Singapore being “the world’s busiest port” had a
significant “interest in ensuring freedom of navigation and security in the
sealanes, so that international trade and economies of our globalised world
can carry on unhindered.”149
Deputy Prime Minister Professor S Jayakumar (as he then was), in
a speech given at the 2005 Launching Ceremony for the frigate RSS
Tenacious, emphasised once more the importance of protecting the Straits
145
Ibid.
146
Chee Hean Teo, Speech presented at the Opening Ceremony of IMDEX Asia 2003 in
Singapore, November 11, 2003. Retrieved from http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/
press_room/official_releases/sp/2003/11nov03_speech.html#.UXSTSbVmh8E.
(Accessed on April 22, 2013).
147
Ibid.
148
Teo, RSS Formidable.
149
Ibid.
of Malacca.150 He noted that “[w]ith the rapid growth of global maritime

commerce, tens of thousands of vessels transit our regional waterways.
Every year, some 50,000 ships carrying some 30% of the world’s trade and
50% of the world’s oil pass through the Straits of Malacca.”151
On the Conflation of Piracy and Maritime Terrorism

In June 2003, Dr Tony Tan, Singapore’s then Deputy Prime Minister,
acknowledged the risk that terrorists may leverage upon the tried-and-
tested strategies used by pirates operating in the Southeast Asian region.
He noted that the Singapore government had “been dealing with the
problem of piracy for some time, and there are methods and tactics associ-
ated with terrorism which [it] can identify; and put in place several preven-
tive measures.”152
Later that year in December 2003, the nexus between pirates and mari-
time terrorists was articulated even more explicitly, when Singapore’s then
Home Affairs Minister, Wong Kan Seng, explained that “[i]f there’s a
crime at sea, sometimes we do not know whether it is pirates or terrorists
who occupy the ship so we have to treat them all alike.”153 Consequently,
he argued that “pirates, who often raid ships in South-east Asian waters,
should be treated as terrorists.”154
At the 2005 Conference on Law of the Sea Issues in East and South
China Seas in Xiamen, China, Professor Jayakumar noted with some dis-
quiet the possibility that potential terrorists were “training” to use vessels
as “floating bombs”155 in much the same way as commercial aeroplanes
had been used during the September 11, 2001 attacks in the USA. He
150
S Jayakumar, RSS Tenacious, Speech presented at the Launching Ceremony at Singapore
Technologies Marine, in Singapore, July15, 2005. Retrieved from http://www.mindef.gov.sg/
imindef/press_room/official_releases/sp/2005/15jul05_speech.html#.UXSUyrVmh8E.
(Accessed on April 22, 2013).
151
Ibid.
152
Straits Times Interactive (Singapore), June 2, 2003. Retrieved from http://www.strait-
stimes.com /storyprintfriendly/0,1887,192467,00.html. (Accessed on June 3, 2003).
153
Singapore Business Times, December 22, 2003, p. 1.
154
Straits Times Interactive (Singapore), January 19, 2004. Retrieved from http://strait-
stimes.asia1.com/commentary/story/0,4386,230853-1074549540,00.html. (Accessed on
January 20, 2004).
155
Straits Times Interactive (STI) (Singapore), March 14, 2005. Retrieved from http://
straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/sub/review/story/0,5562,305613,00.html. (Accessed on March
15, 2005).
74 M.D. CHONG
proceeded to recount to the audience of an “incident in March 2003

where 10 armed men hijacked a tanker and steered the vessel for about
half an hour in the Malacca Straits. They neither plundered nor harmed
the crew.”156
In his opening speech at the 2005 annual Shangri-La Dialogue in
Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong argued that because the local
terrorist organisation, Jemaah Islamiyah, was still a force to be reckoned
with, the threat of maritime terrorism in the region was likewise real and
urgent.157 Despite its weakened state after Singapore’s security forces man-
aged to prevent them from launching maritime terrorist attacks against
American warships berthed there, Prime Minister Lee warned against
complacency. He asked
[w]hy has it been so difficult to slay this multi-headed hydra? It is partly

because some dangerous leaders remain on the loose. But a more basic
problem is that the underlying infrastructure supporting terrorism remains
intact.158
On the Seriousness of the Threat Posed by Pirates and Maritime

Terrorists to the Region
In that same speech given at the opening ceremony of IMDEX 2003,
Rear-Admiral (NS) Teo also expressed his alarm at the prospect of just
how much loss and damage could be suffered at the hands of maritime
terrorists who were intent on forcing, at whatever cost, their extrem-
ist views on the region. He pointed out that “[t]he damage could be
horrific if terrorists turned supertankers, LPG, LNG or chemical carriers
into floating bombs.”159
Likewise, Professor Jayakumar was concerned with not only the fact
that these maritime depredations were increasing in absolute numbers [at
the material time] but also because of the escalating severity and sophis-
tication of the attacks.160 Modern day piracy, in his opinion, had been
156
Ibid.
157
Channel News Asia (CNA) (Singapore), June 3, 2005. Retrieved from http//www.
channelnewsasia.com/cgi-bin/search/search_7days.pl?status=&search=malacca%20
strait&id=150967 (Accessed on June 4, 2005).
158
Ibid.
159
Teo, IMDEX.
160
STI, March 14, 2005.
transformed into a brutal but “high-tech international enterprise”.161 He

opined that “[k]idnapping of crew for ransom and the hijacking of vulner-
able tugs and barges for their valuable cargo suggest that organised ele-
ments are creeping into what was previously the domain of opportunistic
thuggery.”162
On the Need for Greater Inter-State Cooperation to Suppress

Piracy and to Prevent Maritime Terrorism
According to Rear-Admiral (NS) Teo, unilateral state action was not the
most optimal way to address this cross-border problem.163 In his opinion,
“no state can hope to be completely effective in dealing with the threat on
its own.”164 Bilateral and trilateral endeavours by the Littoral States must
be augmented with similarly deep and extensive collaboration with foreign
stakeholders as well as relevant maritime-related international organisa-
tions.165 These “multilateral maritime security initiatives have emerged from
forums such as the International Maritime Organisation, APEC, ASEAN
and the ASEAN Regional Forum.”166 Further enhancements can be imple-
mented “by building on and integrating existing bilateral frameworks, for
example, anti-piracy frameworks, which have proven effective.”167
Professor Jayakumar echoed this sentiment and agreed that the effec-
tive suppression of piracy can only be achieved through greater and
wider forms of inter-state involvement. Thus, “[i]t is for this reason that
Singapore has been a strong advocate of multi-lateral involvement by
regional states and the international community to safeguard our interna-
tional waterways.”168
Accentuating the importance of a safe and navigable Straits of Malacca
to the region, Prime Minister Lee similarly expressed publicly that this
task can only be performed through collective action and effective ground
work.169
161
Ibid.
162
Ibid.
163
Teo, IMDEX.
164
Ibid.
165
Ibid.
166
Ibid.
167
Ibid.
168
Jayakumar, RSS Tenacious [emphasis added].
169
CNA, June 3, 2005.
76 M.D. CHONG
Assessing the Quality of the Speech Act

According to Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde, a successful speech act requires
the satisfaction of two facilitating conditions: the first, an internal com-
ponent that concentrates on the technical linguistic-grammatical rules of
security; and the second, an external element that takes into account the
contextual and social circumstances that are relevant to the securitising
actor (for example, the amount of social capital it possesses), and the spe-
cific nature of the threat (for example, the credibility of the evidence that
purportedly “proves” its existence).170
As the previous section clearly illustrates, Singapore officials were very
careful to frame their statements in the appropriate form, grammar and
vocabulary of security discourse. The content of their speech act was also
explicitly articulated with the referent object and the associated existen-
tial threat unambiguously described. In fact, in order to provide further
justification why there existed an urgent need to take such extraordinary
measures to suppress piracy, a related, though more insidious, issue was
coupled to it—that of preventing maritime terrorism. The conflation of
these two offences would lend greater credence to the existential threat
faced by the referent object, that being a safe and navigable Straits of
Malacca and Singapore Straits. The importance of these straits was under-
scored, and the consequences of failing to adequately securitise the threat
were likewise expressed in stark terms. Finally, broad legal and/or opera-
tional solutions were offered, although these generally had to be imple-
mented through multilateral collaborative vehicles involving not only
the Littoral States, but stakeholder nations and other relevant maritime
entities, both public and private. In effect, Singapore officials were advo-
cating for the internationalising of the straits.
The question as to whether Singapore has sufficient authority, credibility
or social capital to convince Indonesia and Malaysia to securitise the threat
is however a difficult one to answer. In this regard, social capital refers to
the extent to which Singapore can leverage upon “networks, norms and
social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for [the] mutual
benefit”171 of all three countries. Ostensibly, the response to this query
should obviously be in the affirmative. Singapore has taken almost every
Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, pp. 32–3.
170
Robert Putnam, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,” Journal of

171
Democracy (JD) 6:1 (1995), p. 67.

reasonable step to ensure that its territorial and internal waters are physi-
cally safe from pirates and maritime terrorists.172 It has also acceded to
and implemented all the major treaties that suppress piracy and maritime
terrorism.173 Its port and transhipment facilities rank among the best and
safest in the world, but while Singapore has won many accolades from var-
ious stakeholders for these achievements,174 Malaysia and Indonesia have
not been as impressed. This could be attributable to the following reasons.
Firstly, Singapore’s success at maintaining relatively safe territorial
waters as compared to Indonesia and Malaysia could be due to the fact
that the former is a zone or shelf locked island and hence has a lot less
area to patrol than the latter states.175 With a coastline of just 268 kilome-
tres176 as compared to Indonesia’s 54,716 km and Malaysia’s 4,675 km,177
these latter countries face comparatively heavier burdens of p atrolling
their coastal waters. This is exacerbated by the fact that Indonesia’s and
Malaysia’s extensive and jagged coastlines offer pirates numerous bays and
coves to hide and elude capture. Singapore, being a small island, does
not have that same problem. Consequently, Indonesia and Malaysia may
be tempted to discount the significance of some Singapore’s accomplish-
ments in this area.
Secondly, there is a relatively long history of rivalry between the ethni-
cally Malay-dominated Malaysia and a racially Chinese-majority Singapore.
Feelings perennially run high between these two nations especially since
Singapore was once a part of Malaysia but was subsequently asked to
leave the Federation for fear that continued union would result in a racial
bloodbath.178 Since then, ties between them have been relatively strained
as their rivalry has tended to colour their ongoing relationship as equals.179
As for Singapore’s relationship with Indonesia, in a keynote address
given by the then Deputy Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, at the
172
Casey and Sussex, “Energy Transit States,” pp. 31–3.
173
Mak, Unilateralism, pp. 170–82.
174
Casey and Sussex, op. cit.
175
Mak, op. cit., pp. 139 and 141–143.
176
PEMSEA, Country Facts & Figures of Singapore. Retrieved from http://beta.pemsea.
org/country/singapore. (Accessed on April 22, 2013).
177
Tan, “The Emergence of Naval Power,” p. 124.
178
John Funston, “Malaysia: Developmental State Challenged,” in John Funston, ed.,
Government and Politics in Southeast Asia (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,
2001), p. 163.
179
Tan, op. cit., p. 122.
78 M.D. CHONG
NEtwork Conference in May 2003, he recounted an interview given by

the latter nation’s former President, Dr B J Habibie, to the Asian Wall
Street Journal in August of 1998.180 In that news article, Dr Habibie
apparently expressed his opinion that Singapore was not a friend to his
country and pointing to a map said “It’s OK with me, but there are
211 million people (in Indonesia)….All the green (area) is Indonesia.
And that red dot is Singapore.”181 To Mr Lee, this was “a vivid and
valuable reminder that … [Singapore was] indeed very small and very
vulnerable”.182 Even though Dr Habibie’s remarks may have been said
offhand, nevertheless being derided as a “little red dot … [had] entered
the psyche of every Singaporean, and [had] become a permanent part of
… [their] vocabulary”.183 These realities underscore the assumption that
Singapore, being governed by a race that is not indigenous to the Malay
archipelagic region, as well as being considerably smaller in land mass and
population, should accept a passive role as the adik or “younger brother”
in its interactions with Malaysia and Indonesia, and therefore let its abang
or “older brothers” take the lead.184
In addition to these problems relating to their perceived asymmetri-
cal statuses inter se, there are also troubling features about the nature
of the alleged existential threat that Singapore is attempting to securi-
tise. Even deciding whether there is actual evidence—the type of which
the target audience would normally accept as threatening—is a chal-
lenging task indeed. While there are clearly data to support the fact that
“piratical” attacks have occurred along the Straits of Malacca and the
Singapore Straits from the IMB,185 these figures are not without contro-
versy. Although Singapore frequently relies on these statistics, it should
be noted that the definition used by the IMB does not conform to the
definition laid down by customary international law or pursuant to article
101 of UNCLOS. The IMB’s definition is broader in scope than what
180
Hsien Loong Lee, Keynote address at the NEtwork Conference 2003, in Singapore,
May 3, 2003. Retrieved from http://www.mindef.gov.sg/nexus/NEtwrk_conf_keynote_
add.asp (accessed on April 22, 2013).
181
Ibid.
182
Ibid.
183
Ibid.
184
Straits Times (ST) (Singapore), July 25, 2003, p. 17. Singapore does not subscribe to
this subservient or passive status, and has instead been at the vanguard of trying to securitise
the piracy problem along the straits, see Casey and Sussex, “Energy Transit States,” pp. 32–3.
185
See Table 4.1 of this article.
international law conceives to be piracy jure gentium.186 This incongru-

ence has allowed some Indonesian and Malaysian officials correctly to
argue that there has been very little “piracy” along these straits, since
piracy jure gentium can only be committed on the high seas or in waters
outside the jurisdiction of any state.187 Most of the “piratical attacks”
along these channels occurred within the territorial or internal waters
of the Littoral States, and hence should be termed as “sea-robberies”
instead—the implication being that this offence, like any other domestic
crime, is a matter for that country, and that country alone, to address.188
Furthermore, Indonesia has accused the IMB of classifying certain acts of
piracy/sea-robberies in its statistics as having occurred within Indonesian
waters when the attacks had actually been perpetrated in Malaysian ter-
ritorial seas.189 Indonesia argued that this happened because the IMB
was located in Kuala Lumpur (the capital of Malaysia) and hence did not
want to antagonise its host country.190 Moreover, because there was a lack
of incontrovertible proof linking piracy to maritime terrorism along the
straits, Malaysia and Indonesia have generally refused to couple these two
offences, at least until more persuasive evidence can be adduced to prove
the contrary.191
Thus, even though the first of these facilitating factors was more than
adequately satisfied by Singapore, unfortunately, the second of these ele-
ments, that being the external component that takes into account the con-
textual and social circumstances that are relevant to the securitising actor,
and the specific nature of the threat, may not have been met. Consequently,
186
Abhyankar, “Piracy, Armed Robbery and Terrorism at Sea,” p. 2.
187
Jakarta Post (JP), May 8, 2004. Retrieved from http://www.thejakartapost.com/
news/2004/05/08/ri-malaysia-play-down-terror-threat-malacca-strait.html. (Accessed on
April 22, 2013).
188
Jakarta Post (JP), July 29, 2004. Retrieved from http://www.thejakartapost.com/
news/2004/07/29/are-we-hunting-sea-pirates-or-robbers.html. (Accessed on April 22
2013).
189
John Bradford, “Southeast Asian Maritime Security in the Age of Terror: Threats,
Opportunity, and Charting the Course Forward,” Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies
(Singapore) Working Paper Series No. 75, (2005), p. 9.
190
Ibid.
191
New Straits Times (NST) (Malaysia), June 30, 2004. Retrieved from http://www.nst.
com.my/Current_News/NST/Wednesday/National/200406030102319/Article/
indexb_htm. (Accessed on July 1, 2005); Jakarta Post (JP), May 8, 2004. Retrieved from
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2004/05/08/ri-malaysia-play-down-terror-threat-
malacca-strait.html. (Accessed on April 22, 2013).
80 M.D. CHONG
the ensuing analysis of the article will show that this shortcoming signifi-
cantly impacted upon the level of resonance generated within the target
audience.
Assessing the Target Audience’s Response

As Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde noted, an issue is “securitized only if and
when the audience accepts it as such.”192 Achieving this acceptance how-
ever is not particularly onerous, and the securitising actor merely has to
generate sufficient “resonance for a platform to be made from which it is
possible to legitimize emergency measures or other steps that would not
have been possible had….”193 Singapore not attempted to securitise this
issue. Unfortunately, given that the second of the facilitating factors dis-
cussed earlier was not sufficiently fulfilled, it is perhaps no surprise that the
responses from Indonesia and Malaysia to Singapore’s securitising move-
ment have been mixed, at best.
For example, although both these countries were heavily involved
in the conceptualisation of ReCAAP and were willing to work with the
ISC, Indonesia and Malaysia have nevertheless refused to ratify this
agreement.194 The SUA Convention, a legal instrument that specifically
addresses maritime terrorism, has also not been signed and ratified by
these states. Furthermore, Indonesia and Malaysia have continued to
reject: (1) the internationalising of these straits; (2) the use of joint naval
patrols therein; (3) allowing hot pursuit into their territorial waters; and
(4) joining the PSI.195
It may even be argued that the trilateral coordinated naval patrols
(MSSP) and the combined aerial reconnaissance flights (EiS) were not a
direct result of Singapore’s securitising movement but rather responses
192
Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, p. 25.
193
Ibid.
194
Casey and Sussex, “Energy Transit States,” p. 33.
195
As any discerning reader would have immediately noticed, the arguments here would
appear to be somewhat tautological or circular in nature. That unfortunately appears to be
the nature of such assessments. As Roe pithily noted “[g]enerally speaking, successful secu-
ritization is determined in hindsight—if security logic is ex post facto apparent…”, see Paul
Roe, “Securitization and Minority Rights: Conditions of Desecuritization,” Security Dialogue
(SD) 35:3 (2004), p. 281. By that same token, the obverse, as in this case, is equally true.
Thus, the raison d’etre of such an examination is to explain why the securitising act succeeded
or failed, and not, whether it has succeeded or failed.
on the part of Indonesia and Malaysia to pre-empt the involvement of

foreign powers like the USA, Japan and India, as well as to reassure key
functional actors like the Joint War Committee (JWC) of Lloyd’s Market
Association, that the straits were safe for commercial navigation. These
points are elaborated in greater detail below.
The Launching of the MSSP

Mak argued that Indonesia and Malaysia were concerned that Singapore’s
efforts to conflate piracy with terrorism could have brought foreign pow-
ers, in particular, the USA, into play.196 These suspicions were raised when
a news report surfaced in April 2004 announcing that the USA, through
its RMSI, would be deploying American marines and Special Forces to
assist in securing the Straits of Malacca.197 Matters were exacerbated when
Singapore’s Rear-Admiral (NS) Teo Chee Hean expressed his opinion
that international assistance was necessary in order to adequately patrol
the straits, thereby raising the spectre of the possibility that the Straits
of Malacca would be internationalised.198 Reactions were swift and harsh
from the Indonesians and Malaysians, both criticising Singapore for
attempting to involve foreigners into what was essentially an “internal”
issue between the Littoral States.199 Shortly thereafter in July 2004, the
MSSP was officially launched.
196
Mak, Unilateralism, p. 152. See also Jakarta Post (JP), July 21, 2004. Retrieved from
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2004/07/21/show-force-launched-protect-vital-
strait.html. (Accessed on April 22, 2013); New Straits Times (NST) (Malaysia), May 10,
2004. Retrieved from http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Tuesday/
National/20040511070953/Article/indexb_html. (Accessed on May 11, 2004); New
Straits Times (NST) (Malaysia), July 1,. 2004. Retrieved from http://www.nst.com.my/
Current_News/NST/Thursday/National/20040701105439/Article/indexb_html.
(Accessed on July 2, 2004).
197
Mak, Unilateralism, p. 152. This was later clarified by Donald Rumsfeld, the US
Secretary of Defence (as he then was), as a misreporting of Admiral Fargo’s statements con-
cerning the RMSI: Christian-Marius Stryken (2007). “The US Regional Maritime Security
Initiative and US Grand Strategy in Southeast Asia,” in Kwa Chong Guan and John
K. Skogan, eds, Maritime Security in Southeast Asia (London: Routledge, 2007), p. 134.
The damage however was already done.
198
Mak, Unilateralism, p. 152.
199
NST, May 10, 2004; NST, July 1, 2004; JP, July 21, 2004.
82 M.D. CHONG
The Implementation of the EiS Aerial Patrol System

Another factor that may have contributed to this intensification of efforts
on the part of Malaysia and Indonesia could have been the involve-
ment of a key functional actor, namely, the JWC of Lloyd’s Market
Association. In consultation with Aegis Defence Services, this insur-
ance and underwriters association declared that the Straits of Malacca
was in jeopardy of “war, strikes, terrorism and related perils”200 in June
2005. This meant that shipping companies whose vessels were travers-
ing the Malacca Straits would have to pay higher premiums to remain
insured. The Littoral States attempted to get the JWC to reconsider its
decision but this proved to be futile. The EiS was then implemented in
September 2005.201 A year later, Aegis Defence Services reassessed the
situation and found that through the joint efforts of Indonesia, Malaysia
and Singapore, considerable improvement had been made to the mar-
itime security arrangements in the region.202 Consequently in August
2006, the JWC issued a statement removing the Straits of Malacca from
the war risk list.203
Given these circumstances, Baird cogently observed that “…regional
cooperation was driven more by a desire to keep Western powers out
than a desire to work with neighbouring governments.”204 She further
lamented that not only were
… effective regional responses to transnational security issues such as

maritime piracy…in Asia unlikely, in the absence of intervention from the
international community, but that states with sovereign interests at stake
in the issue often prevent the kind of broader international interest and
participation needed to compel cooperative regional action.205
200
The Standard (TS) (Hong Kong), August 25, 2005. Retrieved from http://www.thes-
tandard.com.hk/stdn/std/Focus/GH25Dh01.html. (Accessed on August 26, 2005).
201
Graham Gerard Ong-Webb, “Southeast Asian Piracy: Research and Developments,” in
Graham Gerard Ong-Webb, ed, Piracy, Maritime Terrorism and Securing the Malacca Straits
(Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2006), p. xxx.
202
Lloyd’s News (LN), August 11, 2006. Retrieved from http://www.lloyds.com/news-
and-insight/news-and-features/archive/2006/08/market_removes_malacca_straits_from_
the_list. (Accessed on April 22, 2013).
203
Ibid.
204
Baird, “Transnational Security Issues,” p. 502.
205
Ibid.
Conclusion
As the preceding analysis would strongly suggest, encouraging more sub-
stantive forms of collaborative action between the Littoral States inter
se, as well as with other nations, has been an extremely arduous task. In
spite of the tremendous diplomatic and economic pressure imposed on
Indonesia and Malaysia during the relevant period, these countries con-
tinued to reject any joint measures that would have resulted in the inter-
nationalising of these straits. This stood in stark contrast with the position
taken by Singapore, who viewed many of these joint initiatives as being
essential if the Littoral States wanted to ensure the freedom of navigation
and the safety of these SLOCs.
Given the security implications embedded in this discourse, the specific
leadership role Singapore adopted in order to securitise this issue, and
the radical measures that were being advocated for “i.e. whatever means
… necessary to block [this]…threatening development”, the Copenhagen
School of Security Studies, with its emphasis on these very same issues,
was thus able to offer an extremely potent way of analysing the reasons
why efforts to establish deeper and more extensive multilateral endeavours
failed.
While concerns over the erosion of national sovereignty will always fea-
ture as an impediment in discussions involving inter-state cooperation,
nevertheless this analytical framework also allowed us to discover just how
important facilitating factors were when countries attempt to securitise
perceived existential threats. In this regard, while Singapore was successful
in framing the issue with the appropriate technical linguistic-grammatical
rules of security, it unfortunately did not have sufficient social capital and/
or authority/credibility to convince Indonesia and Malaysia to accept its
securitising move. Singapore was further hampered by the fact that there
was insufficient empirical evidence to prove that there were high levels of
piracy jure gentium being perpetrated along the Malacca and Singapore
Straits, as well as whether there was indeed a conflation of piracy and mari-
time terrorism occurring in these waters.
It may therefore be argued that if the second facilitating factor—the
external element that takes into account the contextual and social cir-
cumstances that are relevant to the securitising actor as well as the specific
nature of the threat—had been satisfied, Indonesia and Malaysia might
have been more amenable to accepting some of the said measures pre-
viously eschewed, for example, participating in joint Littoral State naval
84 M.D. CHONG
patrols (perhaps on similar terms to the EiS), as well as acceding to

ReCAAP, and the SUA Convention.
Furthermore, to improve upon the prospect of Singapore successfully
securitising this issue, the first facilitating factor should be augmented to
incorporate not only the more formal linguistic-grammatical rules of secu-
rity but also “terms that [would] resonate with the hearer’s language by
‘speech, gesture, tonality, order, image, attitude, idea, identifying [her/
his] ways with [her/his]’”.206 This is not a point that policy makers should
easily discount given the argument that the “success of securitization is
highly contingent upon the securitizing actor’s ability to identify with the
audience’s feelings, needs and interests….”207 This sense of empathy, of
being able to genuinely identify with the target audience in materially
relevant ways, may well bridge the cognitive and affective chasm separat-
ing rivals from achieving mutually beneficial objectives, regardless of their
differences in history, ethnicity and religion. Special effort however must
be taken to identify influential functional actors, and to co-opt them into
the securitisation process. By deliberately creating secondary scaffolding
structures to support the primary endeavours of the securitising actor,
such collateral arrangements may act as effective force multipliers, as well
as a way of ameliorating the impact of any deficits in the facilitating fac-
tors. While by no means a guarantee, it is hoped that these latter measures
and improvements to the securitising process could lead to more socially
and contextually effective claims about existential threats to the safety and
security of the Malacca and Singapore Straits.
206
Thierry Balzacq, “The Three Faces of Securitization: Political Agency, Audience and
Context”, European Journal of International Relations (EJIR), 11 (2005), p. 184.
207
Ibid.
CHAPTER 5
The Challenges of Maritime Security

Cooperation in the Straits of Malacca:
Another Singapore Perspective
Ke Xu
Introduction
According to the International Maritime Bureau’s “Piracy and Armed
Robbery against Ships Annual Report” (IMB Piracy Report), the number
of piracy incidents worldwide increased rapidly after the mid-1990s. The
Straits of Malacca is one of the most piracy-prone areas.1 After the terror-
ist attacks on New York on 11 September 2001, piracy in Southeast Asian
waters has been seen in an even more serious light. Anti-piracy and anti-
terrorism have become two main issues on maritime security agenda in the
Asia-Pacific countries.
The chapter examines Singapore’s perception of maritime security, and
analyses the challenges and remedies in maritime security cooperation
1
ICC-IMB, “Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships: Annual Report (1 January–31
December 2004),” (London: ICC International Maritime Bureau, 2005), p. 4.
K. Xu (*)
School of International Relations/Research School for Southeast Asian Studies,
Xiamen University, Xiamen, China

86 K. XU
in Asia. The chapter has three sections: the first section analysing the
perception of Singapore towards maritime security threats; the second
section examining the challenges in maritime security in the Straits of
Malacca; and the third section providing the remedies for problems in
maritime security cooperation.
Singapore’s Perceptions of Maritime Security

Threats
Singapore, located in southern end of the Straits of Malacca, is the
world’s busiest international container hub port, attracting on average
140,000 vessel calls annually.2 Singapore, as a port state, has been highly
dependent on foreign trade, “freedom of navigation through the Straits
of Malacca and Singapore Strait is fundamental to the survival and pros-
perity of Singapore”, because the port state has few natural resources
of its own.3 For example, maritime industry is increasingly economi-
cally important for Singapore. Singapore port and its related maritime
services have been contributing around seven percent of Singapore’s
gross domestic product.4 To safeguard the sea lanes passing through the
Straits of Malacca is its top priority; Singapore, with only 699 km2 land
area and three nautical miles of territorial waters, is greatly dependent
on the cooperation with other littoral states of the Straits of Malacca,
namely Indonesia and Malaysia.
Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships

Before 9.11, piracy and armed robbery against ships were regarded as the
main threat to maritime security in the Straits of Malacca. According to
the IMB Piracy reports, the number of incidents of piracy and armed rob-
bery against ships in the Straits of Malacca kept increasing in the 1990s,
2
MPA, Introduction, Maritime Port Authority, 2006, [cited 18 April 2006], available from
http://www.mpa.gov.sg/portdevelopment/intro/intro.htm.
3
Donna Nincic, “Sea Lane Security and U.S. Maritime Trade: Chokepoints as Scarce
Resource,” in Globalization and Maritime Power, ed. Sam Tangredi, Washington: National
Defense University, 2002, p. 156.
4
SMF, Singapore: International Maritime Centre (Singapore Maritime Foundation, 2006
[cited 18 April 2006]), available from http://www.sgmf.com.sg/imc/imc.asp.
THE CHALLENGES OF MARITIME SECURITY COOPERATION IN THE STRAITS... 87
culminating in 2000. The number of piracy incidents in 2000 reached

469, more than five times that of 1991.5
Maritime Terrorism
After 9.11, the Singapore authorities were convinced that maritime ter-
rorism threats were possible. In December 2001, Singapore arrested 13
members of Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist group, and discovered that the
group had made six preliminary plans to conduct suicide attacks on US
targets and Singapore local installations. One of the plans related to mari-
time terrorism: an attack against US naval vessels off Changi and Pulau
Tekong. The plan was to launch a “sea-borne bomb attack using a small
vessel against US ships travelling eastwards from Sembawang Wharf via
Pulau Tekong where the channel was narrowest and where the ship would
have had no room to avoid a collision with a suicide vessel.”6
Singapore’s Responses
Singapore expressed a great concern over the maritime security issue, and
has a strong incentive to combat maritime security threats. Singapore’s
responses can be divided into two phases: pre- and post-9.11.
Pre-9.11: Anti-piracy Cooperation

Since the early 1990s, Singapore has cooperated with Malaysia and
Indonesia, on anti-piracy operations. In 1992, Singapore signed bilateral
agreements with Indonesia on coordinated naval patrols, and conducted
periodic anti-piracy exercises in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore
Strait.7 Singapore and Malaysia reached similar agreements on sharing
information on criminal activities.8
5
ICC-IMB, “Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships: Annual Report (1 January–31
December 2004).”
6
Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore. White Paper: The Jemaah Islamiyah Arrests and the
Threat of Terrorism. 2003, p. 29.
7
Peter Chalk, “Contemporary Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia”, Studies in Conflict and
Terrorism 21, no. 2 (1997), pp. 87–112.
8
Hasjim Djalal, “Combating Piracy: Co-operation Needs, Efforts, and Challenges.” In
Piracy in Southeast Asia: Status, Issues and Responses, Derek Johnson and Mark Valencia ed.
Singapore: IIAS/ ISEAS, 2005, p. 149.
88 K. XU
Singapore also cooperated with other countries within international

organisations, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),
ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and UN International Maritime
Organization (IMO). In December 1997, the first ASEAN Conference on
Transnational Crime was held in Manila. At that conference, the partici-
pating countries signed the ASEAN Declaration on Transnational Crime.
The Declaration called for the establishment of an ASEAN Centre on
Transnational Crime, which would coordinate the region’s efforts to curb
transnational crimes through intelligence sharing and the coordination of
operations.9
Piracy issues had been addressed at the ARF and before the IMO.10
Singapore maritime experts participated in the two ARF Experts Group
Meetings on Transnational Crime held in October 2000 and April 2001,
recognising that piracy was an increasingly serious transnational crime
with regional security implications.
Singapore has been participating in the IMO working group regarding
the safety of navigation, communication, search and rescue operations,
and piracy and armed robbery against ships. Based on the working group
report, the IMO Maritime Safety Committee issued two important guide-
line circulars for shipping industry and governments on the suppression of
piracy.11 However, little progress was made on the piracy issue; meanwhile,
piratical attacks continued to increase in Southeast Asian waters at the end
of the 1990s.
Post 9.11: International Maritime Security Cooperation

In the aftermath of 9.11, the perception of piracy in Southeast Asia
changed dramatically, especially after many policy analysts and politicians
9
Ibid., p. 109.
10
The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which began in Bangkok on 25 July 1994, is an
informal multilateral dialogue group of 25 members that seeks to address security issues in
the Asia-Pacific region. ARF countries, comprising the ten ASEAN countries, China, Japan,
South and North Korea, Mongolia, India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Australia, Russia, Papua
New Guinea, Timor Leste, the United States, Canada and the European Union, represent
approximately 80% of global GDP and trade.
11
One of the Circulars is No. MSC/Cir.622/Rev.1, entitled “Piracy and Armed Robbery
against Ships: Recommendations to Governments for preventing and suppressing piracy and
armed robbery against ships.” The other is Circular No. MSC/Circ.623/Rev.3, “Piracy and
Armed Robbery against ships: Guidance to ship owners and ship operators, shipmasters and
crews on preventing and suppressing acts of piracy and armed robbery against ships.”
alleged a nexus between piracy and terrorism.12 The pace of cooperation

on maritime security in the Straits of Malacca was speeded up.
Cooperation with Other Littoral States

On 20 July 2004, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia launched new coor-
dinated patrols, the Trilateral Coordinated Patrols, or MALSINDO, in
the Straits of Malacca; these new coordinated patrols operated year-round
using ships from the littoral states.13
On 27 May 2005, the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN) and the
Indonesian navy officially launched Project SURPIC (Surface Picture) in
Batam. SURPIC was a sea surveillance system, which allowed the RSN
and Indonesian navies to share a common real-time sea situation picture
of the Singapore Strait.14
In September 2005, the three littoral states and Thailand began coordi-
nated air patrols over the Straits of Malacca to enhance maritime security
in this busy waterway, which were known as the “Eyes in the Sky” patrols.
The aerial patrols are a powerful supplement to the above mentioned sea
patrols, or MALSINDO, carried out by the navies of the littoral states. The
patrol planes are allowed to fly over three nautical miles inside the terri-
torial waters of the participating states, whereas in sea patrols, the patrol
ships are limited to patrolling in their own territorial waters. This will be
elaborated below.15
IMO and Anti-terrorism Measures

In the wake of 9.11, in November 2001, the IMO Assembly called for a
review of the existing international legal and technical measures to prevent
and suppress terrorist acts against ships at sea and in ports.16 After the IMO
12
Young and Valencia “Conflation of Piracy and Terrorism in Southeast Asia: Rectitude
and Utility”, Contemporary Southeast Asia 25(2003), pp. 269–283.
13
AFP, “Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore Agree to Joint Malacca Strait Patrols,” Jakarta
Post 30 June 2004.
14
Graham Gerard Ong, “Charting a Unified Course for Safer Seas,” The Straits Times, 25
June 2005.
15
“Eyes in the Sky’ initiative launched for Malacca Strait security”, Channel News Asia, 13
September 2005, http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/
168037/1/.html.
16
IMO, “IMO Assembly Resolution A.924 (22),”London: International Maritime
Organization, November 2001.
90 K. XU
Assembly, a Diplomatic Conference on Maritime Security was held at the

London headquarters of the IMO in December 2002, which was attended
by 109 governments contracted to the 1974 International Convention for
the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS).17 The Conference adopted a number
of amendments to SOLAS on maritime security, including the mandatory
requirement for ships to comply with the new International Ship and Port
Facility Security Code (ISPS Code).18
The ISPS Code contains detailed security related requirements for gov-
ernments, port authorities and shipping companies in a mandatory section
(Part A), together with a series of guidelines about how to meet these
requirements in a second, non-mandatory section (Part B). The code
applies to ships engaged on international voyages and port facilities serv-
ing these ships.19 All the ships and port facilities belonging to this category
were required to comply with the ISPS Code before 1 July 2004.
In 2004, Singapore witnessed the implementation of the ISPS Code,
which not only significantly increased security awareness in the Singapore
waters, but also effectively reduced at the source threats to the secu-
rity of ships and port facilities. Additionally, Singapore implemented a
number of other measures to boost maritime security. For example, the
Harbour Craft Transponder System (HARTS), a system for monitoring
small vessels, which are not mandated to carry Automatic Identification
System (AIS), in Singapore Port.20 For this reason, amongst others,
piratical attacks in ships, ports and anchorages declined significantly
after 2004.21
Asian Security Summit (Shangri-la Dialogue)

In May 2002, Singapore hosted the Asian Security Summit (also called the
“Shangri-La Dialogue”) in the Shangri-la Hotel. The Shangri-la Dialogue
is an informal forum organised by the London-based International Institute
17
IMO, “Consideration and Adoption of the International Ship and Port Facility Security
(ISPS) Code, Consideration and Adoption of the Resolutions and Recommendations and
Related Matters (Solas/Conf.5/34),” London: International Maritime Bureau, 2002.
18
Ibid.
19
IMO, ISPS Code, Part A, 3 Application.
20
Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, “Safety and Security,” Rolling Ahead: Annul
Report 2006, pp. 16–17.
21
K. Matthews, “Trade and Shipping: A Common Interest of the Asia-Pacific”, Australian
Maritime Affairs, p. 10, p. 2003, p. 54.
of Strategic Studies. In the inaugural meeting, participants included US

Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, British Defence Minister Geoff
Hoon and Director-General of China’s Foreign Affairs Bureau, MG Zhan
Maohai, together with other high-rank security officials from India, Japan,
Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea,
Australia and New Zealand. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong
addressed a keynote speech before ministerial delegations from the partici-
pating countries.22
From the inaugural meeting in 2002, the informal setting of the
Shangri-la Dialogue “facilitated a frank exchange of views, and allowed
new concepts to be floated and discussed.”23 The Shangri-la Dialogue
became a key multilateral forum for defence and security dialogue in
Asia-Pacific region.24 At the third Shangri-la Dialogue in June 2004,
the USA expressed its intention not only to retain its “forward pres-
ence” in the Asia-Pacific region, but also to seek to update its military-
strategic doctrines. Sometime earlier, in March 2004, Admiral Thomas
B. Fargo, commander of the US Pacific Command, unveiled the US
Regional Maritime Security Initiative (RMSI). The goal of RMSI was to
partner the region’s nations—of all manner of differing capabilities—to
create a relationship to observe, monitor and intercept any transnational
threats in their waters, with the use of existing international and domes-
tic legislation.25
Singapore welcomed American involvement in maritime security in the
Straits of Malacca, but Indonesia and Malaysia rebuffed US offers to pro-
vide intelligence, conduct joint patrols and send US Marines into their
territorial waters.26
22
www.iiss.org.
23
Teo Chee Hean, “Speech by Mr Teo Chee Hean, Minister for Defence, at Committee
of Supply Debate 2008. Accessed at http://www.mindef.gov.sg.
24
IISS, The IISS Shangri-La Dialogue (International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2006
[cited 3 June 2006]); available from http://www.iiss.org/conferences/the-shangri-la-
dialogue.
25
Global Security, “Regional Maritime Security Initiative” (cited 7 July 2006), available
from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/rmsi.htm.
26
AP, Malaysia, U.S. To Discuss Port Security (USA Today, June 6th 2004 [cited 2 June
2006]), available from http://www.iiss.org/conferences/the-shangri-la-dialogue/press-
coverage/press-coverage-2004,/usa-today---discuss-port-security.
92 K. XU
Challenges in Maritime Security Cooperation
The Burden of the Littoral States

The Straits of Malacca is a transit passage or straits used for interna-
tional navigation pursuant to the United Nations Convention on the Law
of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS) Part III. The Straits of Malacca is under the
jurisdiction of three littoral states, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. The
littoral states have a duty to maintain navigation safety and preserve the
marine environment in the Straits of Malacca. In the transit passage regime
of UNCLOS, the sovereignty of littoral states is limited or restricted, for
example, the littoral states may not suspend transit passage. 27 However, the
duty of the littoral states is explicitly stipulated in Article 42 of UNCLOS:
States bordering straits may adopt laws and regulations relating to transit pas-
sage through straits, in respect of all or any of the following: (a) the safety of
navigation and the regulation of maritime traffic, as provided in article 41; (b)
the prevention, reduction and control of pollution, by giving effect to applicable
international regulations regarding the discharge of oil, oily wastes and other
noxious substances in the strait; (c) with respect to fishing vessels, the preven-
tion of fishing, including the stowage of fishing gear; (d) the loading or unload-
ing of any commodity, currency or person in contravention of the customs,
fiscal, immigration or sanitary laws and regulations of States bordering straits.
Navigation Aids
According to the international legal instruments mentioned above, the
littoral states are responsible for providing and maintaining:
• visual navigational aids, such as lights, buoys and marks;

• cables and pipelines and other offshore facilities;
• hydrographical and other navigational information;
• ship-to-shore-to-ship communications systems, including coastal
radio stations, satellite communication response systems, etc;
• coastal and marine meteorological services, including weather
reporting stations, weather facsimile services, etc;
• basic vessel salvage and/or emergency repair facilities, including
towage services, marine pollution contingency systems, pollution
reception facilities, etc.28
27
UN, “The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), U.N. Doc.
A/Conf.62/122,” (United Nations, 1982), p. 247.
28
Edgar Gold, Transit Services in international Straits: Towards Shared Responsibilities?
(Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Institute of Maritime Affairs, 1995), p. 6.
The littoral states, with the help of Japanese non-governmental organ-

isations, have spent a large sum of money on providing these services. For
instance, Malaysia has invested a total of RM 52 million to install 256
navigational aids in the Straits including light buoys and beacons from
1970s to 1980s. Malaysia also provides other services, such as hydro-
graphic surveys and communication which costs RM 100 million per
year.29 From 1990 to 2000, Malaysia spent more than RM 200 million
to install and maintain navigational and security related facilities, includ-
ing the Sea Surveillance System, Vessel Traffic Monitoring System, the
Electronic Chart Display System and the AIS. The cost was well above the
collection of light dues and other navigational services.30
Maritime Security
Since 1990s, the booming East Asian economies have generated a huge
volume traffic passing though the Straits of Malacca, which causes increas-
ing congestion, navigational safety and environmental pollution problems.
To make matters worse, piracy and armed robbery against ships have again
increased in the Straits.31
Incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships in the Straits of
Malacca have been increasing from 1990s. The littoral states are under
great pressure from the shipping industry and international community.
Enhancement of maritime security in the Straits has become a heavy bur-
den for the littoral states. However, some, such as Indonesia and Malaysia,
have not got sufficient financial and maritime capabilities to implement
the anti-piracy tasks.
Maritime Capabilities
Indonesia
Indonesia’s maritime capability ranks the lowest of the three littoral states.
The Indonesian navy and Indonesian coast guard are the two main law
29
A. Hamzah and Mohd. Nizam Basiron, The Straits of Malacca: Some Funding Proposals,
Kuala Lumpur: Maritime Institute of Malaysia (MIMA), 1996, p. 9.
30
Mat Taib Yasin, Sharing the Burden of Maintenance of Safety and Security of Navigation
in the Straits of Malacca, Maritime Institute of Malaysia, 2005.
31
Tom McCawley, “Sea of Trouble,” Far Eastern Economic Review 167, no. 21 (2004).
94 K. XU
enforcement agencies responsible for combating piracy and armed robbery

against ships. The Indonesian navy has set up Navy Control Command
Centres (Puskodal) in the pirate-prone areas, Batam and Belawan, to
combat piracy and ensure maritime security in the Straits of Malacca and
Singapore Strait. The Puskodal gather and submit reports on piracy to the
IMB. They also give orders to the navy units in their field to carry out
anti-piracy operations or coordinate with their Malaysian and Singaporean
counterparts.32 Indonesia’s marine police and coast guard, the Kesatuan
Penjaga Laut dan Pantai (KPLP), share responsibility for law enforce-
ment in territorial and archipelagic waters. The KPLP is Indonesia’s
primary anti-piracy agency. However, the capabilities of both units are
insufficient.33
Besides these two law enforcement agencies, there is an inter-agency
law enforcement body, the National Coordination Board for Sea Security
(Badan Koordinasi Keamanan Laut, BAKORKAMLA), handling law
enforcement activities at sea. The BAKORKAMLA was established in
1972 by the Armed Forces Command of the Ministry of Security and
Defence, the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Forestry, the
Ministry of Judicial Affairs and the Superior Court. It is funded by the
Ministry of Security and Defence. The aim of BAKORKAMLA is to
optimise maritime laws and cooperation with neighbouring countries.34
However, the BAKORKAMLA is being criticised by the shipping indus-
try for lack of efficiency, particularly since the separation of the police from
the armed forces.35
32
Bernard Kent Sondakh, “National Sovereignty and Security in the Straits of Malacca”
(paper presented at the “Straits of Malacca: Building a Comprehensive Security Environment”,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 11–13 October 2004), 8.
33
Christopher Langton, ed., The Military Balance 2006 (London: Routledge & the
International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2006).
34
Dewan Keamannan Laut Indonesia, “Keputusan Bersama Menteri Pertanhan-
Keamanan/Panglima Angkatan Bersenjata, Menteri Perhubmungan, Menteri Keuangan,
Menteri Kehakiman Dan Jaksa Agung-Pembentukan Badan Korrdinasi Keamanan Di Laut
Dan Komando Pelaksana Operasi Bersama Keamanan Di Laut, ” ed. Menteri Perhubmungan
Menteri Pertanhan-Keamanan/Panglima Angkatan Bersenjata, Menteri Keuangan, Menteri
Kehakiman Dan Jaksa Agung (1972).
35
Hasjim Djalal, “Piracy and Challenges of Cooperative Security and Enforcement Policy,”
The Indonesian Quarterly 30, no. 3 (2002), p. 108.
Indonesia’s huge geographical extent and its Wawasan Nusantara

i.e. Archipelagic doctrine require a sizeable and modern navy.36 Indonesia’s
fleet currently consists of 126 warships and 120 other vessels, of which
only about 25 vessels are currently operational at sea at any given time.37
In the words of the Indonesian navy’s Admiral Sondakh, “the new ships
cannot shoot, the old ships cannot sail.”38 Of some 60 aircraft, including
helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, about 40 percent are not operational.39
Rear Admiral Bijah Soebijanto, Director of the State Intelligence Institute,
said that Indonesia needed to spend an estimated USD 2.7 trillion on at
least 176 more warships and 110 more coast guard aircraft to fulfil its mis-
sion. The Indonesian navy began to plan for its reconstruction following
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s first taking office on 20 October
2004. However, the modernisation requirements substantially exceed any
realistic expectation of budget allocation for the 46,000-man navy and
Marine Corps.40
The development of the Indonesian navy was hindered during the
1990s by a combination of funding restrictions and eccentric decision-
making plans. The Indonesian navy now faces maritime security chal-
lenges that are more acute than at any time since the 1960s. For example,
in March 2005, following the maritime dispute with Malaysia over the
resource-rich Ambalat area off Borneo, which escalated into a naval
standoff in the Sulawesi Sea, Indonesia realised that its naval capability
needed urgent strengthening.41 In June 2005, Indonesia’s new Chief of
Naval Staff, Admiral Slamet Soedijanto, published the ‘TNI-AL Blueprint
2004–2013’, which aims at achieving ‘green-water’ capability by 2020.42
An ambitious programme of navy procurement was announced, which
36
The doctrine stresses the vital importance of the integrity of the country’s island and
maritime territory.
37
Hasjim Djalal, “Combating Piracy: Co-Operation Needs, Efforts, and Challenges,” in
Piracy in Southeast Asia: Status, Issues and Responses, ed. Derek Johnson and Mark Valencia
(Singapore: IIAS/ISEAS 2005), p. 145.
38
Tempo, “Interview-Navy Admiral Bernard Sondakh: ‘the Navy Is Not a Security
Guard’,” Tempo (2004), p. 45.
39
Christopher Langton, “Responding to the Maritime Challenge in Southeast Asia” in The
Military Balance 2006, ed. Christopher Langton (London: Routledge & the International
Institute for Strategic Studies, 2006).
40
Staff-Report, “Indonesia Moves to a New Strategic Age,” Defence & Foreign Affairs’
Strategic Policy, (2005).
41
Staff-Report, “Indonesia Moves to a New Strategic Age.”
42
Langton, ed., The Military Balance 2006, p. 256.
96 K. XU
highlighted the importance now attached to maritime defence. The

Indonesian naval procurement programme involved four new Sigma-class
corvettes, four Korean-built Landing Platform Dock; Chinese C-802 anti-
ship missiles and four Todak-class large patrol boats.43 However, it would
take several years before this equipment is operational, and most machines
in the naval procurement are not used for anti-piracy operations or com-
bating smuggling and other illegal activities at sea.
Malaysia
Malaysia is the second in terms of maritime capability. A number of Malaysian
government agencies are responsible for maritime security, which include:
the Malaysian Armed Forces—primarily the Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN);
the Royal Marine Police (RMP); the Department of Fisheries (Marine
Resources Protection Unit and Marine Parks Unit); the Royal Malaysian
Customs; the Marine Department under the Ministry of Transport; and
the National Security Division of the Prime Minister’s Department.44
In 1985, Malaysia established a Maritime Enforcement Coordinating
Centre (MECC) under the National Security Division of the Prime
Minister’s Department to enhance inter-agency cooperation in managing
maritime security, especially in surveillance and enforcement functions.45
The RMN has been concentrating on building blue-water and war-
fighting capabilities since the 1990s. After 9.11, in November 2005, the
Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) was established as a
new inter-agency coordinated centre, composing of the RMP, customs
and fisheries department as well as the RMN.46
The MMEA’s responsibility for maritime security extends 200 nautical
miles to the Exclusive Economic Zone limit. RMP police are responsible
for security within 12 nautical miles of Malaysian territorial waters.47 The
MMEA’s current focus is to ensure that the Straits of Malacca are free
from piracy, armed robbery against ships and other maritime crimes. The
MMEA aims to deploy 72 vessels, including 15 ex-RMN patrol boats.
The MMEA also includes an air component, which aims to deploy 20
43
Ibid.
44
Djalal, “Combating Piracy: Co-Operation Needs, Efforts, and Challenges,” 148.
45
Ibid.
46
Christopher Langton, ed., The Military Balance 2006. (London: Routledge & the
International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2006).
47
Ibid., 225.
helicopters and both amphibious and conventional aircraft in the near

future.48 In 2006, the RMN gave 1,300 officers and 17 vessels to the
MMEA. However, the maritime capability of Malaysia has not yet been
equal to the challenges it faces at sea.49
Singapore
Four agencies are in charge of the implementation of maritime security
tasks: the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN), the Police Coast Guard
(PCG), the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) and the Immigration
and Checkpoints Authority. In March 2007, the Ministry of Defence of
Singapore announced plans to develop three maritime “command and
control centres” to enhance coordination against maritime threats. The
three centres are: the Singapore Maritime Security Centre, the Information
Fusion Centre and the Multination Operations and Exercises Centre. The
centres will be under the Changi Command and Control Centre and will
have employees from a number of government agencies, including the
MPA and the PCG. The command and control centre will reach comple-
tion within two years.50
Due to its highly developed economy and intensive interaction with US
armed forces, Singapore ranks first among the three littoral states in terms
of maritime capability. The Singapore PCG, made up of six patrol squad-
rons and a fleet of more than 80 vessels, is in charge of maritime security in
its territorial waters. The PCG works in collaboration with the RSN. The
Coastal Command of the RSN is the agency directly involved with deter-
rence and prevention of piracy, armed robbery against ships, and mari-
time terrorism in Singapore’s territorial waters. It is composed of patrol
vessels, inshore fast boats and mine counter-measure ships. The Coastal
Command collaborates closely with the PCG, the MPA and the Port of
Singapore Authority. Furthermore, the Republic of Singapore Air Force
provides maritime air surveillance support. Singapore has been strength-
ening its coastal patrol capabilities over the last few years on a continual
basis by purchasing new equipment and vessels.51
48
Ibid.
49
New Straits Times, “Navy is seriously Short of Men and Ships”, New Straits Times, 27
April 2007.
50
T. Rajan. “Three Maritime Centres to be under one roof,” The Straits Times. 28 March
2007.
51
Singapore Ministry of Defence, Defending Singapore in the 21st Century (Singapore:
Ministry of Defence, 2000).
98 K. XU
Singapore’s new maritime security measures include the creation of

Accompanying Sea Security Teams, which are tasked with boarding and
escorting vessels, analysing shipping data, detecting and deterring any
criminal activity on board.52 Since the 1990s, the Singapore government
has been enhancing naval capabilities. Under Project Delta, Singapore will
procure six Formidable-class frigates (3200 tonnes, 114m), Harpoon anti-
ship and MBDA Aster 15-point defence missiles; such advanced weap-
onry will significantly boost the state’s ability to protect its Sea Lines of
Communication.53
After 9.11, the maritime security of Singapore was further enhanced
with the help of the US navy. Singapore’s naval procurement programmes
included plans to acquire six S-70B Seahawk multi-role helicopters for
the frigates, and two ex-Swedish Type A17 Västergötland-class subma-
rines, a Landing Ship Tank, Hydroid REMUS underwater systems and
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.54
In a nutshell, Singapore’s maritime capability is strong, but its jurisdic-
tion is limited to three nautical miles around Singapore, which only covers
a small area at the southern end of the Straits of Malacca. The Straits of
Malacca is shared by Malaysia and Indonesia. However, these two coun-
tries are lacking in maritime capabilities to safeguard the Straits. The most
obvious and easiest way to solve problems relating to a lack of capability
is to request assistance from foreign navies. Singapore is open to offers
of foreign aid, but Indonesia and Malaysia, with a concern for a threat
towards sovereignty over their own territory, strongly oppose any foreign
naval intervention.
Implementation of Anti-piracy and Anti-terrorism

Cooperation
Sovereignty concerns are reflected in the bilateral and multilateral anti-
piracy and anti-terrorism patrols amongst Indonesia, Malaysia and
Singapore. In contemporary Southeast Asia, there are two forms of anti-
piracy patrols. One is known as a “coordinated patrol”, which means that
the various nations’ law enforcement agencies coordinate while patrolling
52
Ibid.
53
Christopher Langton, ed., The Military Balance 2006, London: Routledge & the
International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2006.
54
Ibid., pp. 254–58.
within their own territorial waters, but they cannot cross national sea bor-
ders. Each law enforcement agency has its own commander. The other
form is the “joint patrol,” in which the law enforcement agencies of all
the participating countries constitute one task force and patrol together
under one commander; and this task force is empowered to cross national
sea borders.55
In Southeast Asia, all bilateral or multilateral anti-piracy or anti-
terrorism operations are coordinated patrols rather than joint patrols,
which do not allow the pursuit of pirates into a neighbour’s territorial
waters. The Malaysian MECC declared, “Under no circumstances would
we intrude into each other’s territory. If we chase a ship and it runs into
the other side, we let the authorities there handle it.”56
However, this practice is very problematic. Following this principle, the
law enforcement agencies in the Straits of Malacca are likely to miss the
best chance to catch pirates red-handed. In fact, in many cases, by the time
the foreign counterparts arrived at the scene, the pirates have disappeared
into the blue.57
Under this pattern, pirates can take advantage of jurisdictional limits
and commit their crimes in territorial waters of one state, then flee into
another country’s territory waters. In contrast, if the patrol were a joint
patrol, law enforcement agencies could go in hot pursuit of pirates into
other countries’ territorial waters, and the pirates would not be able escape
so easily.
In short, the coordinated patrol protects the sovereignty of coastal
countries, but reduces the effectiveness of the patrol. Joint patrols would
obviously be more effective, but owing to Malaysia and Indonesia not
being signatory parties to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful
Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA Convention), they
cannot be implemented. The shipping industry and international com-
munities have been appealing to Malaysia and Indonesia to ratify the SUA
Convention.58 However, there have been no signs of further progress
towards ratification by these two countries.
55
Sondakh, “National Sovereignty and Security in the Straits of Malacca,” p. 12.
56
Chalk, “Contemporary Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia,” pp. 87–112.
57
Interview with Singapore Marine Coast Guard, Capt. Lim Hean Yew, in Singapore, 24
March 2005.
58
ARF, “ARF Statement on Cooperation against Piracy and Other Threats to Security,”
(June 17, 2003 [cited 10 May 2006]); available from http://www.aseansec.org/14838.htm.
100 K. XU
Incentive
Indonesia
Indonesia is suffering from a lot of serious maritime problems, such as ille-
gal fishing, smuggling, illegal logging, and sand exploitation. Illegal fish-
ing in Indonesian waters has robbed the nation of a great deal of income.
The Indonesian government loses an estimated USD 2 billion a year in
illegal fishing.59 Smuggling, illegal logging and sand exploitation, all have
caused great losses for Indonesia: USD 1 billion per year from smuggling,
RP 30 trillion per year from illegal logging, and RP 2 trillion each year
from illegal sand exploitation.60 Hence, Indonesia’s policymakers have to
make full use of its limited capability to protect its priority aims.
Anti-piracy and anti-terrorism are not on top of the Indonesian prior-
ity list. According to an IMB report, only a few ship victims of piratical
attack belong to Indonesia, and the economic loss caused by piracy is
minimal.61 Indonesian policymakers reject the prospect of devoting sig-
nificant resources to what is perceived as such a low priority problem.62
Indonesian officials argued that “piracy” as defined in the IMB report
refers to cases of petty theft or burglary perpetrated in Indonesian ports
and anchorages.63 The then Navy Admiral, Bernard Kent Sondakh, argued
that the piracy situation in the Straits of Malacca had been deliberately
exaggerated, and that it was part of an international strategy to justify
foreign intervention in Indonesia by portraying the country as weak and
incapable of looking after its own waters.64
The other reason for Indonesia’s lack of incentive to prioritise anti-
piracy operations is the cost. The immediate cost of anti-piracy operations
59
MoD, Defending the Country Entering the 21st Century (Jakarta: Ministry of Defence,
Indonesia, 2003), p. 30.
60
Hasjim Djalal, “Piracy in Southeast Asia: Indonesian & Regional Responses,” Jurnal
Hukun International [Indonesian Journal of International Law] 1, no. 3 (2004), pp. 419–40.
61
ICC-IMB, “Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships (1 January–31 March 2005)”
(Essex: ICC International Maritime Bureau, 2006).
62
John F. Bradford, “Japanese Anti-Piracy Initiatives in Southeast Asia: Policy Formulation
and the Coastal State Responses,” Contemporary Southeast Asia 26, no.26, 2004,
pp. 480–505.
63
Bernard Kent Sondakh, “National Sovereignty and Security in the Straits of Malacca.”
Paper presented at the “Straits of Malacca: Building a Comprehensive Security Environment”,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 11–13 October 2004.
64
Ibid., p. 5.
is too high for Indonesia. For instance, just to set up an anti-piracy com-
mand and control centre between the Strait of Singapore and Jakarta
would cost Indonesia about USD 38.5 million.65 However, for fear of
threats to national sovereignty, Indonesia strongly rejected the USA’s
Regional Maritime Security Initiative (RMSI), which would have allowed
the US navy to patrol in the Straits of Malacca.66
Malaysia
Malaysia’s economy relies heavily on the seaborne trade passing through
the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea. The Malaysian govern-
ment aims to redirect cargo traffic that is being shipped through the Port
of Singapore. For example, Tanjung Pelapas Port, located about 45 min-
utes from Singapore, was set up to compete with Singapore as the region’s
hub port. The Malaysian government also envisages Port Klang as a hub
port for national and regional traffic.67 These two main ports are located
in the Straits of Malacca; thus, maritime security in the Straits of Malacca
has a direct impact on Malaysian economic prosperity. Furthermore, from
the perspective of internal trade, Malaysia’s two geographically separated
landmasses require a safe passage through the South China Sea.
However, Malaysia considered that it was unfair for it to have to spend
a huge amount of money to safeguard foreign ships passing through the
Straits of Malacca. The user’s states should share the burden of the cost,
or “burden sharing scheme”, which will be discussed below.
Remedies to the Problems
Remedy to Anti-piracy Cooperation Problems
ReCAAP
In November 2001, at the ASEAN+3 Summit in Brunei, Japanese Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi proposed the establishment of a government-
level working group to study the formulation of a regional anti-piracy
cooperation agreement. Negotiations on this issue continued for three
65
Djalal, “Combating Piracy: Co-Operation Needs, Efforts, and Challenges,” p. 146.
66
Bradford, “Japanese Anti-Piracy Initiatives”, pp. 480–505.
67
Chia, Goh, and Tongzon, Southeast Asian Regional Port Development: A Comparative
Analysis, p. 41.
102 K. XU
years. Eventually, the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating

Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) was con-
cluded in Tokyo on 11 November 2004 among 16 Asian countries,
including the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, the
Kingdom of Cambodia, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic
of India, the Republic of Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the
Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, the Union of Myanmar, the
Republic of the Philippines, the Republic of Singapore, the Democratic
Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, the Kingdom of Thailand, and the Socialist
Republic of Viet Nam.68 The ReCAAP agreement came into force on 4
September 2006, but the two key littoral states of the Straits of Malacca,
Malaysia and Indonesia have yet to ratify the agreement.
The three pillars of ReCAAP are: Information Sharing, Capacity
Building, and Cooperative Arrangements. The key pillar of the
ReCAAP was the establishment of the Information Sharing Centre
(ISC). The ISC is a government-level international organisation that
aims to facilitate communication and information exchanges between
member countries, and improve the quality of statistics and reports on
piracy and armed robbery against ships in the region. The ISC, located
in Singapore, is run by an Executive Director with a number of staff
from member countries.69
Remedy to Lack of Capabilities and Incentives
Burden Sharing Scheme

The littoral states claim that it is inequitable for them to carry the entire
burden in the enhancement of the safety of navigation, security and
environmental protection of the Strait of Malacca. The burden sharing
proposals have been submitted by the littoral states in the international
conferences since 1990s. For example, Maritime institute of Malaysia pro-
posed “The Straits of Malacca: Some Funding Proposals” in the “Regional
Conference on Sustainable Financing Mechanisms for the Prevention
and Management of Marine Pollution Public Sector-Private Sector
68
MFA, Singapore, “The Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and
Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (RECAAP),” Singapore: The Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, 2005, 28 April 2005.
69
Ibid.
Partnerships” in 1996.70 However, the appeal of the littoral states did not
gain enough attention from the international community.
After 9.11, the USA gave a great deal of attention to the maritime secu-
rity of main transportation chokepoints, especially the Straits of Malacca.
Many anti-terrorism measures were proposed and implemented worldwide
with respect to the maritime security, for instance, the Container Security
Initiative, the IMO’s ISPS Code, and the RMSI. The USA expressed its
willingness to help the littoral states to enhance maritime security in the
Straits of Malacca. Singapore also proposed that the US navy patrol in the
Straits of Malacca, but the proposals was strongly objected by other two
littoral states Malaysia and Indonesia. In July 2005, the Lloyd’s Market
Association’s Joint War Committee blacklisted the Straits of Malacca as
a war risk zone. The littoral states were under greater pressure from user
states, shipping industry and other stakeholders.71
The Legal Base for Burden Sharing

The international legal base for the burden sharing is established under
UNCLOS Article 43:
User States and States bordering a Strait should by agreement cooperate:

(a) in the establishment and maintenance in a strait of necessary navigational
and safety aids, or other improvements in aid of international navigation; (b)
for the prevention, reduction, and control of pollution from ships.
The littoral states, at the beginning, hoped to establish an institution

to collect taxes from vessels transiting the Straits of Malacca. The prec-
edent for this charging mechanism is the Turkish Straits. The Montreux
Convention (1936) has given Turkey the rights beyond its normal bound-
aries of innocent passage to collect taxes from ships in transit as well as
imposing a sanitary inspection requirement. The Turkish Straits Authority
collected taxes and toll for services provided for the navigational safety at
the straits. However, in terms of traffic volume, user states and the juris-
diction, the Straits of Malacca is far more complicated than that of the
Turkish Straits.
70
71
JWC, “Hull War, Strikes, Terrorism and Related Perils Listed Areas (JW 2005/001),”
London Joint War Committee, 2005.
104 K. XU
The Attitude of the Beneficiaries

Whatever the proposed mechanism will be, it must gain the supports
from beneficiaries of the Straits of Malacca: the user states, shipping
industry and other stakeholders. The main user states are the East Asian
countries, Japan, China and Korea; there are other user states, such as
Australia, Bahamas, Belgium, Brunei Darussalam, Cyprus, Denmark,
Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Liberia, Netherlands,
New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Russian Federation,
Spain, Sweden, Thailand, the UK and the USA. Among these user states,
only Japan has been contributing to the maintenance of the Straits of
Malacca since 1970s. In 1981, the Japanese set up a Y 400 million revolv-
ing fund to provide initial funding to combat oil spills in the Straits.72
There are many indirect beneficiaries: at the global level, the shipping
and oil industries at large, such as INTERTANKO and BIMCO, the
International Union of Marine Insurance, the International Group of P&I
Clubs, the Oil Companies International Marine Forum, the International
Oil Pollution Claims Fund, the International Tanker Owners Pollution
Federation and many other organisations. However, such benefits must be
better quantified and the commercial advantages of the services provided
have to be made clearer.73
In the Kuala Lumpur meeting (18–20 September 2006), which was
convened by IMO and three littoral states, the main user states of the
Straits of Malacca discussed the burden sharing issue relating to safety,
security and environmental protection of the Straits, with the aim of
developing mechanisms and programmes to facilitate cooperation in the
Straits.74
In the Kuala Lumpur meeting, the user states agreed to support the
littoral states’ projects, which was an encouraging step towards burden
sharing in enhancing safety of navigation, security and environmen-
tal protection of the Straits of Malacca. Note that the burden sharing
72
73
Ibid., pp. 13–14.
74
International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), international Confederation of Free Trade
Unions (ICFTU), International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse
Authorities (IALA), BIMCO, Oil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF),
International Federation of Shipmaster’s Associations (IFSMA), International Parcel Tankers
Association (IPTA), Malacca Strait Council.
scheme was on a voluntary basis, rather than on a compulsory one, which

implied that the charging mechanism proposed by the littoral states was
still unacceptable for the user states, the shipping industry and other
stakeholders.
On 4–6 September 2007, in Singapore, the IMO formally launched
a Cooperative Mechanism between the littoral states and user states on
safety of navigation and environment protection, “the culmination of
years of close collaboration between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore,
the three littoral states of these Straits.”75
Conclusion
The global economy is becoming increasingly interdependent through
seaborne trade. Maritime security in the navigational chokepoints, such as
the Straits of Malacca, is crucial for the global economy and the user states.
To enhance maritime security calls for international cooperation. From
1990 to 2001, maritime security threat in Southeast Asia came mainly
from piracy and armed robbery against ships, and anti-piracy cooperation
was mainly limited to ASEAN and East Asian countries. However, anti-
piracy cooperation in Southeast Asia was hampered by lack of capabilities
and incentives in the littoral states.
In the aftermath of 9.11 in 2002, the piracy and terrorism nexus in
Southeast Asia evoked widespread international concern. There have
been some paradigm shifts in the littoral states on anti-piracy poli-
cies, and incentives and capabilities of the littoral countries have been
enhanced. Malaysia and Indonesia in particular, enhanced their maritime
capabilities, in order to show that they were capable of safeguarding
their own waters and to prevent foreign navies from intervening in the
name of protecting the Straits of Malacca. Singapore took advantage of
its hub location, playing an active role in maritime security cooperation.
Singapore not only fully implemented many timely measures on maritime
security, such as ISPS Codes, in its territorial waters, but also took the
initiative to host the ISC of ReCAAP and the Shangri-la Dialogue meet-
ings. Furthermore, Singapore cooperated with other littoral states in pro-
moting of burden sharing notions, which later led to the establishment
75
S. Jayakumar, “Keynote address in Singapore Meeting on the Straits of Malacca and
Singapore: Enhancing Safety, Security and Environmental Protection” 4–6 September 2007.
106 K. XU
of the cooperative mechanism on navigation safety and environment pro-

tection in the Straits of Malacca between littoral states and user states.
These all contributed to maritime security in this region. After several
years’ efforts, piracy and armed robbery against ships declined signifi-
cantly in Southeast Asia.
CHAPTER 6
The Seas of Our Insecurity: Ordinary versus

State Discourses on Maritime and Human
Security in the Philippines
Antonio P. Contreras
Troubled Seas: The Philippines as a Maritime

Country
The Philippines is undoubtedly a maritime country. With its archipelagic
nature, it is composed of about 7,100 islands, and its total coastline is
36,289 km. The area of the territorial waters of the country, including the
Exclusive Economic Zone, covers 2.2 million km2. Of these, 226,000 km2
are considered as coastal waters, while 1.93 million km2 are oceanic
waters. Eighty one percent of its provinces and 54% of its municipalities
are located along the coasts. At the beginning of this century, these areas
already served as home to 84% of the total population (about 64.7 million
out of the total 76.9 million), and such number relative to the total has
increased steadily since then. In 1990, the population density in coastal
areas was estimated to be 227 persons/km2. Ten years after, such density
increased by about 26% to 286 persons/km2. In the same year, and on
A.P. Contreras (*)

Political Science Department, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines

108 A.P. CONTRERAS
the average, 2,467 persons were estimated to inhabit one kilometer of

coastline.1
Marine habitats in the Philippines are also vast and varied. Its oceanic
habitats are estimated to be about 1,868,210–1,991,479 km2. Coral reefs
account for between 10,250 km2 and 33,500 km2 while sea-grass covers
between 343 km2 and 635 km2. Also included as part of these marine
habitats are the mangrove areas, which account for between 1,380 km2
and 1,607 km2, and the wetlands and coastal watershed areas covering
around 196,048 km2.2
With its archipelagic nature, the marine economy of the Philippines is
also significant. In 2011, the fishery sector accounted for 2.2% of the total
GDP, and 19.3% of the total agricultural output.3 Aside from fisheries, the
coasts and oceans provide other goods like oil, gas, minerals, salt and con-
struction materials, and services such as biodiversity, shoreline protection,
water quality amelioration, transportation and tourism. It is estimated that
the annual contribution of coral reefs alone to the national economy is
about USD 1.064 billion. Estimates also indicate that all goods and ser-
vices produced from coastal and marine ecosystems contribute about 60%
of the country’s GDP.4
However, these vast ocean and coastal resources are now being threat-
ened. Biodiversity resources are being degraded, and coastal reefs are
seriously compromised by over-fishing brought about by an increas-
ing population. In Southeast Asia, the Philippines ranks second only to
Indonesia in terms of both the total area of coral reefs (26%) as well as the
area which is threatened (29%). It is estimated that over-fishing threatens
about 80% the coral reef resources in the country, while blast and cyanide
fishing threatens at least 70%. Sedimentation and pollution from agricul-
ture and foreshore development, in turn, affect about 40%.5 Similarly, over
the past 70 years, mangrove ecosystems in the country have lost 75% of
1
World Bank. 2005. Philippines Environment Monitor – Marine and Coastal Resources
Management.
2
DENR. 2003. Sustainable Philippine Archipelagic Development Framework.
3
Danilo C. Israel, “Philippine fisheries trade with ASEAN: chokepoints to AEC 2015,”
Policy Notes, Philippine Institute for Development Studies, No. 2013-10 (September 2013),
pp. 1–2.
4
PEMSE, “Integrated Coastal Management (ICM): Revitalizing the Coasts and Oceans
Programs in the Philippines.” Policy Brief 2:1 (May 2006).
5
Liz Selig, Lauretta Burke and Mark Spalding, Status of Coral Reefs in Southeast Asia
(2002), Chapter 5 [http://pdf.wri.org/rrseasia_chap5.pdf].
THE SEAS OF OUR INSECURITY: ORDINARY VERSUS STATE DISCOURSES... 109
their cover, even as about 50% of the sea-grass beds have either been lost
or severely degraded.
These degraded ecosystems, in turn, pose risks not only to the security
of those whose livelihoods depend on them, but also to the inhabitants
of urban areas which are now more prone to natural disasters such as
floods and storm surges—which natural barriers such as mangrove swamps
and coral reefs used to protect them from. These would have enormous
impacts to the national economy.
As an archipelago, inter-island shipping takes a significant economic
role, particularly as a most economical way to transport people and goods
across the various islands of the country. Ironically, the Philippines do
not have a viable domestic shipbuilding and ship repair capability. This
is attributed mainly to lack of government support, weak incentives for
investments, low comparative advantage of domestic economic activ-
ity vis-à-vis importation of second hand sea vessels, and lack of technical
capacity and infrastructure support.6
In 2000, there were about 4,931 shipping vessels operating in the
country, 28.6% of which were classified as shipping cargo vessels and
26.3% as passenger cargo vessels. These shipping vessels, most of which
are second hand imports mainly from Japan, have an average age of 12.89
years,7 which increased to 15.18 years in 2010.8 It is this fact, together
with a weak vessel traffic system, and a weak enforcement system that
allows overloaded ships to sail, that has greatly contributed to the occur-
rence of maritime disasters in the country. The worst sea disaster was
recorded in 1987 with 4000 lives lost when the passenger ship MV Dona
Paz collided with a tanker. Since then, maritime safety has been improv-
ing, but at a very slow pace. Thus while in the period of 1990–96, a total
of 141 maritime incidents, or an annual average of 20, were recorded,
the Philippine Office of Civil Defense reported 19 maritime accidents
for 2012.9 Likewise, while the accident causing the worst oil spill in
6
MARINA, Shipbuilding and Ship Repair (SBSR) Sector: A Situation Report 1999–2004
(2004) [http://www.marina.gov.ph/report/sbsr/SBSR_SituationerReport_2004.doc].
7
MARINA, The Domestic Shipping Industry of the Philippines: A Situation Report (2003),
[http://www.marina.gov.ph/report/domestic/domestic2003.doc].
8
Iza M. Anchustegui, “Working at Sea: A Survey on the Working Condition of Filipino
Seafarers in the Domestic Shipping Industry,” ILS Discussion Paper Series 02-2011 (Institute
for Labor Studies, December 2011), p. 3.
9
Philippines 2013 Crime and Safety Report, Overseas Security Advisory Council, US
Department of State, February 7, 2013, [https://www.osac.gov/pages/
ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=13574].
110 A.P. CONTRERAS
Philippine maritime history occurred on August 11, 2006, when a tanker

carrying more than 2 million liters of bunker fuel sank at the Guimaras
Strait, a disaster with similarly serious environmental implications hap-
pened almost on the same day seven years later in 2013—only this time
it was a diesel leak from an underwater pipe in Cavite on the southern
shores of Manila Bay. Investigations into the earlier accident indicated
that human error from an unqualified captain, gross overloading beyond
the capacity of the ship, and a fierce storm were the causes. The blame for
the recent accident was laid on the 80-year old pipe of the Philippine oil
giant, Petron Corp. Yet both cases reflect the true state of the maritime
industry in the country in which weak governance systems juxtapose with
natural forces to create situations that seriously compromises human and
ecological security.
Ironically, however, the Philippines is not in short supply of world class
ship personnel. In 2001, the country was the top source of seafarers in the
world for officers (50,000) as well as ratings (180,000), or a combined
number of personnel of 230,000. Indonesia was a distant second with
only 83,500 personnel.10 This global diaspora of seafaring expertise is but
one characteristic of the out-migration of Filipino workers seeking higher
wages abroad. In the same manner that the domestic health-care system
is threatened with the out-migration of doctors and nurses, or the educa-
tional system being compromised with the out-migration of teachers, the
departure of seafarers leads to an ironic situation, which made one local
leader of the seafaring workforce to state that “while the Philippines is the
top supplier of ratings and officers to the world’s fleet, it is unable to man
its own ships.”11
Thus, one can see that the security of the maritime economy and ecol-
ogy of the Philippines is seriously threatened, and is significantly at risk
from the adverse impacts of natural and anthropogenic threats. An exami-
nation of such threats would lead one to believe that significant nega-
tive drivers are population increase, weak laws and enforcement systems,
and the socio-economic poverty that has plagued Philippine society for
decades. Many lives are threatened by the degradation of coastal and
ocean environments even as more lives are bound to be jeopardized by
maritime accidents if the maritime industry remains in its present state.
ITF Sea Farers Bulletin, No. 16, 2002.

10
“Sea Tragedies,” Tinig ng Marino: The Philippines Only Globally Circulated Maritime
11
Newspaper. July-August 2003 [http://ufs.ph/tinig/julaug03/index.html].

Yet, when we talk about maritime security in the Philippines, the domi-
nant discourse that emerges features two prominent themes: the uncer-
tainty brought about by the South China Sea territorial disputes, and the
threats of global terrorism.
The Traditional Security Discourse vis-à-vis

the Seas
A close perusal of the maritime security literature written both by

Filipino and foreign scholars reveals the dominance of the South China
Sea as an object of inquiry and theorizing. While the South China Sea is
a geopolitical space which does not engage the imagination of ordinary
Filipinos—despite the fact that a significant portion of its territory and
population are bound by it—the current discourse about the South China
Sea remains cast in traditional political security terms, which privileges
the protection of national sovereignty and territorial boundary. This is
born out of a particular historical and geopolitical context, in which the
Philippines is a party to conflicting territorial claims in the region, specif-
ically with China over the Spratlys. What magnifies the centrality of the
South China Sea is its perceived strategic location, both militarily and
economically, and the significant manageable interest which other influ-
ential countries have on it, such as the USA, Japan, Canada, Russia and
Australia. This stems from the fact that control of the South China Sea
would directly imply dominant control of the Malacca Straits, and would
have significant impacts on the balance of economic and military power
in the whole of the Asia-Pacific region. Other Southeast Asian coun-
tries, such as Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei have direct territorial claims
on the area, even as Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore have expressed
keen interest and have actively participated in discussions over its fate as
neutral parties in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Taiwan, despite its problematic status vis-à-vis China, has also expressed
its own territorial claims.
The dominance of the South China Sea in the official imagination of
maritime security in the Philippines is articulated in the perception of a
possible threat to national security from armed Chinese invasion. This is
expressed in a discourse of a “China Threat” which was considered earlier
to be less intense compared to how Malaysia and Indonesia viewed the risk
from China, but which reached an alarming level when the latter occupied
112 A.P. CONTRERAS
Mischief Reef in the contested Spratlys in 1995.12 It has been hyped up

even more since 2012 when a territorial standoff broke out between the
two countries over Scarborough Shoal.13
In reality, however, the official narrative of the current threat from
China by the Philippine government is largely driven by its strategic
interests in the vast oceanic resources offered by the South China Sea,
such as access to deep sea oil/gas reserves and abundant fishing grounds.
The entrance into force of the United Nations Convention on the Law
of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1994 provided an impetus for the transla-
tion of the discourse from a purely military concern to one that thrives
within a complex domain of political economic interests. UNCLOS,
which had the intention of establishing an institutional framework for
the management of the open seas, has also heightened the competition
among countries over the South China Sea. This stems from the fact
that accession to UNCLOS gave maritime countries exclusive economic
zones of up to 200 nautical miles.14 Thus, excepting that of the 1995
episode regarding Mischief Reef, the media projection of the China
threat, at least to the ordinary Filipino citizen, now comes not in the
form of news about an invading Chinese or Vietnamese army, but about
Chinese and Vietnamese fishing vessels encroaching into Philippine
territory.
The official Filipino perception of the threat to national security includes
a wider array of concerns, such as fishing by alien shipping vessels, piracy
and smuggling by groups that cross state borders for their operations.
However, even as the threats have now become more varied to include
not just military invasion but the occurrence of illegal economic activities,
the maritime security discourse espoused by the Philippine government
remains encapsulated within a traditional military security mold, focusing
on strategies by state forces such as the navy and the coast guard to secure
the seas from lawless elements as well as traditional military threats. Thus,
not only have territorial disputes in the South China Sea have been hitting
12
Aileen Baviera, “China’s Relations with Southeast Asia: Political Security and Economic
Interests,” PASCN Discussion Paper No. 99-17 (1999).
13
Camille Diola, “Global survey: 2 in 5 Filipinos see China as an ‘enemy’”, Philippine Star,
July 19, 2013, [http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/07/19/988411/global-survey-
2-5-filipinos-see-china-enemy].
14
Aileen Baviera, “Much Ado about Something: The Stakes are High in the Kalayaan
Islands,” UP Observer, March-April 1999. University of the Philippines.
the headlines in recent years, but the topic of non-state criminal activities
has also remained prominent since 9/11 when the seas became effective
conduits for a new enemy—the terrorists.
The Philippines has indeed been considered a haven for terrorists, and
has been identified as a training and launching ground for their activi-
ties. The Jemaah Islamiyah is said to have entered into an alliance with
two Philippine based groups, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG).15 These groups have been involved
in maritime terrorism not only within the Philippines but in the region.
The ASG carried out the 1991 bombing of the MV Doulos, the April
2000 kidnapping of tourists in Sipadan, the September 2000 kidnapping
of three Malaysian tourists in Sabah, the May 2001 kidnappings of three
Americans and 17 Filipinos in the Dos Palmas Resort in Palawan, which
led to the death of two American hostages, and the February 2004 bomb-
ing of Superferry 14 in the Philippines which killed hundreds of passengers
and crew.16 The MILF, for its part, also launched maritime attacks, the
most noted of which was carried out in the seaport of Davao City in April
2003 and killed 17 people.17
The emergence of maritime terrorism, in addition to the incidence of
other lawless activities such as piracy, smuggling and illegal fishing, has
put the spotlight on the capacity of the Philippine government to deal
with the problem. The Armed Forces of the Philippines, particularly the
Philippine Navy, is considered by some to be the weakest in Southeast
Asia.18 This weak capacity is also true for the Philippine Coast Guard, and
stems not only from technical problems emanating from a severe short-
age of resources such as patrol boats and surveillance equipment, but also
from the pervasive corruption which comes in the form of bribe-taking,
15
Catherine Zara Raymond, “The Threat of Maritime Terrorism in the Malacca Straits,”
Terrorism Monitor 4:3 (February 9, 2006).
16
Rommel Banlaoi, “Maritime Terrorism in Southeast Asia: The Abu Sayyaf Threat,”
Naval War College Review, Autumn 2005.
17
Katherine Zara Raymond, “Australia’s New Maritime Security Strategy,” IDSS
Commentaries, November 16, 2004.
18
Bateman, “Naval Balance in Southeast Asia – Search for Stability”: n. p. Ian Bostock,
“Asia’s Amphibious Capability Assessed,” Jane’s Intelligence Review12:10 (2000), pp. 43–6.
Malcolm H. Murfett, “‘All Bets Are Off’: The Maritime Situation in Southeast Asia in the
Year 2000,” Seapower at the Millenium, Geoffrey Till, ed. (Thrupp: Sutton Publishing in
association with Royal Naval Museum Publications, 2001), pp. 167–71.
114 A.P. CONTRERAS
and in the illegal sales of arms not only to civilians but even to armed
separatist groups.19
The effective implementation, therefore, of maritime security measures,
even from the point of view of traditional state-centered interpretations,
remains a hostage to the apparent incapacity of the state to deal with the
problem. This has opened a venue for external involvement and/or inter-
vention, either in the form of technical assistance in the form of military
modernization programs, or in more direct military partnerships, as seen
in the joint Philippine-US military exercises. This partnership between the
USA and the Philippines continues to rest on a relatively unequal power
relation. The role which the dominant American security discourse has
played in the formation of the Philippine national security policy has deep
historical roots. This has been further cemented by the emergence of a
globalized war on terror, and the emergence of the post 9/11 “alliance of
the willing” formed by George W. Bush and to which Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo willingly joined on behalf of the Filipinos.
While the threat of maritime terrorism and of other lawless sea-based
activities such as piracy, smuggling and illegal fishing, remains a significant
factor in the crafting of the foreign and national maritime security policy
of the country, it is simplistic policy-making to be totally fixated on the
traditional and the usual, and be blinded from the equally pervasive occur-
rences that confront the maritime regions of the country. Without mean-
ing to devalue lives by making decisions based mainly on events which
have caused more deaths, an objective comparison would yield that the
number of casualties of maritime disasters combined (excluding those that
have been caused by terrorist acts) far outnumbers those that have been
killed in the series of bombings and kidnappings perpetrated by the ASG
and MILF on maritime facilities and installations. The threat posed by
ecological degradation of coral reefs and mangrove areas to human liveli-
hoods and safety are as compelling as the security threat posed by bomb-
ers, kidnappers, pirates and smugglers.
It is in this context that one should look at the ordinary experiences of
the Filipino when looking at the sea, as both a source of life and death,
to offer a counter-discourse to the dominant, usual and official state dis-
courses on maritime security To an ordinary Filipino coastal community,
19
Carolin Liss, The Privatisation of Maritime Security-Maritime Security in Southeast Asia:
Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” Working Paper No. 141, Murdoch University, February
2007.
the sea is a source of livelihood, but it could also be a dangerous place. The
reality of such danger is not painted as terrorists who will bomb their com-
munities and kidnap them for ransom, but in the image of deadly waves
that may inundate their homes and communities; nor is it presented as
marauding pirates threatening to steal their wealth and rape their women,
but in the images of fish-kills, polluted waters, reduced catch, and com-
petition from big fishing vessels that threaten their livelihoods, and could
literally steal from them the future of their children.
Alternative Security Conceptions: Human

and Ecological Security
The dominance of traditional security concepts began to be contested,

at least in theory, from the time when the United Nations, through its
1994 Human Development Report, officially launched the concept of
“human security” into the development mainstream. The human person,
both as an individual and living collectively in communities, becomes a
central focus, displacing the state, in constructing a concept of security.
Such concept privileges an everyday life that is safe from the threats of
hunger, disease and repression, and that is protected from the impacts of
sudden and adverse disruptions vis-à-vis economic, environmental, per-
sonal, community, health, political and food concerns.20 A year after in
1995, the Philippine government, through its relevant agencies, initiated
the first steps towards the internalization of such global development into
the national mainstream by convening a conference focused on human
and ecological security. The outcome of the conference, which was also
attended by various sectors in civil society, was a top-level commitment
towards the protection of people and the environment. This later meta-
morphosed into the Social Reform Agenda of the Ramos Administration,
and was expressed in the slogan of Philippines 2000.
The top-down sponsorship of such a discourse occurred simultane-
ously with attempts by some academics and public intellectuals to begin
re-imagining national security to include elements like moral/spiritual
consensus, cultural/social cohesiveness, economic solidarity/organicity,
socio-political stability, ecological integrity, territorial integrity, political
20
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), “Redefining Security: The Human
Dimension,” in Human Development Report 1994 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
116 A.P. CONTRERAS
unity, and external peace.21 In 2004, the Philippine Human Development

Report which was commissioned by the United Nations Development
Programme and the Human Development Network, defined human
security as a state of life which is free from fear, want and humiliation.
It also posited that human security is a pre-condition for the attainment
of human development, and that while the latter entails the widening
of the range of people’ choices, it is the former that ensures that peo-
ple actually, safely and freely make those choices.22 In 2006, the Third
World Studies Center in University of the Philippines Diliman con-
ducted a series of sessions which aimed at developing a human security
framework. The academic exercise re-imagined the concept of human
security within a context that would privilege the interconnectedness of
all dimensions of human existence, provide a central focus on security
of land tenure as an important part, emphasize community security over
individual security, and celebrate the multiple narratives for understand-
ing human security.23
Attempts were also made by the government to couple human security
with traditional military security. A multi-agency task force, the National
Task Force on Convergence, was convened in 2004 to facilitate the har-
monization of the military and civilian perspectives in the operationaliza-
tion of a framework for national security that would integrate the concept
of human security in the process of policy-making. In 2007, the Office
of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process initiated a process by
which human security will be integrated in local governance, through the
adoption of a “conflict-sensitive lens” which puts value on the protection
of the physical safety, socio-economic wellbeing, dignity and worth, and
human rights and fundamental freedoms of citizens. This is premised on
21
Serafin Talisayon. n.d. “The framework of national security,” in Gregorio Honasan and
Michael Eric Castillo, “A national security framework for the Philippines.” National Security
Review 20: 4 (December 2002).
22
Emmanuel de Dios, Soliman Santos Jr. and Sharon Faye Piza, The Fifth Philippine
Human Development Report: Peace, Human Security and Human Development in the
Philippines, (Human Development Network and the United Nations Development
Programme, 2005).
23
Zuraida Mae D. Cabilo and Sharon M. Quinsaat, “Towards a Human Security
Framework in the Philippine Context.” In Zuraida Mae D. Cabilo, Sharon M. Quinsaat, and
Trina Joyce M. Sajo, eds., Defining the Human Security Framework in the Philippine Context,
(Third World Studies Center, University of the Philippines-Diliman, 2007), pp. 117–23.
the belief that human development is possible when citizens live securely
and safely.24
All of these developments point to the undeniable fact that the dis-
course of human and ecological security has taken its root not only in aca-
demic theorizing, but even in official development discourse by the state.
This has enabled the insertion of the concept not only in academic dis-
course, but also in official discourse. However, one has to also recognize
that the task of transforming the dominant traditional security discourse
is a challenging one. Meaningful attempts to offer a counter-discourse
may still contain elements of the dominant concepts of traditional security.
Even academic theorizing, either by choice or as constrained by funding,
can limit conceptualization of the human security discourse to one that
is still within the context of armed threats and conflict. For example, the
initial phase of conceptualizing human security according to the Filipino
experience, as being theorized and conceptualized by the Third World
Study Center in a project funded by UNDP, due to funding constraints,
is focused only on threat-based situations that emerged in the context of
armed conflict. In the said project, human security is operationalized by
referring to the individual and the community as they exist in a situation
in which threat to security emanates from armed conflict with the state.25
Earlier, even the Philippine Human Development Report focused only on
ideology-based armed conflict in its conceptualization of human security.26
Nevertheless, and despite these limitations, the attempts to integrate
human security with the traditional security discourse remain as signif-
icant developments. Their significance is further bolstered when they
are seen as voices of resistance in the context of the resurgence of a
militaristic tendency of the government. Attempts to reform the secu-
rity sector have been sidelined by the government’s preoccupation with
maintaining its own “security” in the face of doubts over its legitimacy.
The Arroyo Administration, in particular, markedly moved towards a
more militaristic approach in handling the series of political crises which
24
Office of the Peace Commissioner, Conflict Sensitive and Peace Promoting Local
Development Planning (Philippines: Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process
[OPPAP], 2009).
25
Ela Atienza, “Filipino Conceptions of Human Security: Developing a Human Security
Index for the Philippines.” Paper presented in the International Development Studies
Conference on Mainstreaming Human Security: The Asian Contribution held in Bangkok,
Thailand, October 4–5, 2007.
26
De Dios, et al., The Fifth Philippine Human Development Report, 2005.
118 A.P. CONTRERAS
it faced, and continues to face, thereby threatening to erode whatever

progress was made in recent years towards the meaningful operational-
ization of human security. The full force of the police power of the state
is unleashed on legal dissent through the use of calibrated preemptive
response against public rallies and demonstrations. Paramilitary forces
continue to inflict their version of state terror against suspected insur-
gents, rebel sympathizers, and progressive civil society forces, including
those who espouse the very concept of human security. The elements
of martial rule, such as forced disappearances and political killings of
perceived enemies of the state, continue to be felt in many areas. The
greatest irony happened when the Human Security Act of 2007 was
passed by the Philippine Congress which effectively appropriated the
concept as a part of the title of a piece of legislation that, on the balance,
has nothing to do with the promotion of human security, but instead is
designed to combat the threat of terrorism through the deployment of
the traditional and usual means.
Thus, we are left with a situation in which the government, through
its desire to maintain its own “security,” becomes a grave threat not only
to the growth of the concept of human security, but also to the realiza-
tion of human security as a desirable experience for its citizens. It is in this
context that we have to imagine the possibility for spaces to emerge and
provide a venue to articulate an alternative discourse on maritime security,
one that enables human security. Fortunately, the relative autonomy of
the ordinary experiences of civil society vis-à-vis their relationship with the
sea, as a separate sphere for the production of social meaning and for the
emergence of local social institutions, may have allowed for such spaces to
be created.
Bringing in the Ordinary in Maritime Security

Discourse: Beyond the State and into People’s Lives
The first time that the discourse of maritime security was brought into
the context of coastal resource management in the Philippines was in
1994, when the Cabinet Committee on Maritime and Ocean Affairs
(CABCOM-MOA), to prepare for the entry into force of UNCLOS
which the Philippines ratified in 1984, formulated the National Marine
Policy (NMP). The country had no choice but to prepare such docu-
ment in compliance with the management obligations which came with
accession to UNCLOS which required the Philippines to preserve its

marine environments, adopt sustainable measures in exploiting its marine
resources, respect freedom of navigation, and participate in international
marine scientific research activities. In addition to the identification of
development strategies in key areas on national territory, marine ecology,
and marine economy and technology, the NMP also identified the follow-
ing statements and goals vis-à-vis maritime security27:
• Enhance maritime security, which was defined as a state in which the

country’s marine assets, maritime practices, territorial integrity and
coastal peace and order are protected, conserved and enhanced;
• Promote and enhance maritime security as a key component of
national security;
• Provide a stable and peaceful socio-political and administrative envi-
ronment in the country that fosters profitability and growth for mar-
itime industries;
• Protect and defend the integrity of the Philippines’ marine resources;
• Ensure preparedness for and effective response to natural calamities
and man-made disasters; and
• Provide leadership and guidance in the proper and effective collec-
tion, processing and distribution of strategic information supportive
of the NMP.
A perusal of these statements and goals reveals a dominantly traditional

security discourse, with a focus on territorial integrity and freedom from
threats that could jeopardize the growth of the maritime economy. The
inclusion of natural calamities and human-caused disasters, while asso-
ciated with alternative security concepts, is nevertheless part of a tradi-
tional security practice of delegating the armed forces to oversee disaster
relief work. In fact, the Secretary of National Defense is the head of the
National Disaster Coordinating Council. However, what was significant
in the NMP was the initial attempt to locate these militaristic discourses
beside policy statements and goals that valorized ecological integrity and
the promotion of a viable maritime economy.
27
Michael Garcia, Progress in the Implementation of the Philippine National Marine Policy:
Issues and Options, Report as United Nations – The Nippon Foundation Fellow, New York,
2005, as called from the 1994 National Marine Policy formulated by Cabinet Committee on
Marine and Ocean Affairs.
120 A.P. CONTRERAS
At the time of the formulation of NMP in 1994, there already existed

many coastal related development projects in the country, some of which
have started as far back as the early 1980s. These projects were mainly
initiated by NGOs such as the Participatory Research Organization of
Communities and Education Towards Struggle for Self-reliance, Haribon
Foundation and Tambuyog Development Center in several areas like
Bohol, Antique, Samar, Zambales and Sorsogon.28 Their activities were
focused on resource enhancing measures which included the building of
artificial reefs, mangrove reforestation and the management of protected
areas. This long tradition of community-based coastal resource manage-
ment interventions has contributed to the high density of community-led
and area-specific projects in the country. In 2003, the Philippines had
the highest number of coastal management initiatives in East Asia. The
Philippines had 43 initiatives, while Indonesia, which is the largest mari-
time country in the region, had only ten and China had nine. More than
half of this (29 initiatives or 63% of total number) are area-specific local
initiatives and the rest are initiatives that cover more than one province.29
The above is proof to the fact that the Philippines is known for having
a strong and active community of civil society organizations involved in
community-based resource management interventions in coastal areas. The
prevalence of community-based coastal resource management is enabled by
an environment that is an offshoot of the democratization process which
began in the late 1970s and has reached its peak in the 1980s and into
the 1990s. The presence of civil society organizations has been particu-
larly strong in coastal communities. A healthy civil society, in which NGOs
perform the roles of being catalysts, initiators, project drivers, brokers and
mediators, has enabled the formation of horizontal alliances among vari-
ous community organizations for collaboration and cooperation. While the
passage of the NMP did not guarantee the development of a more specific,
integrated and comprehensive national ocean policy, local environmental
conditions and the relative strength of grassroots organizations and third-
party NGOs, have engendered the emergence of local and site-specific
responses which are autonomous of national policy. It is in these domains
that the discourse for linking environmental security with human security
28
Elmer Ferrer and the CBNRM Coastal Team, State of the Field: CBNRM in the
Philippines, Community Based CRMC, UP Social Action for Research and Development
Foundation, Inc., and UP Center for Social Work and Community Development, 2001.
29
PEMSE, “Integrated Coastal Management.”
emerged, in which issues of resource and environmental sustainability were

coupled with the sustainability of human communities.30
The Philippine government, for its part, has provided an environment
that is conducive for community-based coastal resource management. Legal
instruments, such as the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 (Republic Act
8550), have enabled the creation of multi-sectoral consultative bodies such
as the Fisheries and Aquatic Resource Management Councils (FARMC) in
which local stakeholders are able to participate in policy-making and in the
formulation of fisheries development plans, and serve as an advisory body
to local government units. While there is still a significant number of coastal
cities and municipalities that have not activated their FARMCs, and while
those Councils that have been established face capacity problems due to the
lack of technical expertise and funds, this kind of legislation has opened up
spaces for articulating and advancing a participatory human development
discourse in coastal communities. In 2006, Executive Order 533 has been
issued to institutionalize the adoption of the integrated coastal management
(ICM) as a national strategy to be used to pursue sustainable development
of coastal and marine environmental resources in the country.
The Philippines has also a strong track record in acceding to several
international treaties and conventions that have implications towards the
advancement of coastal and marine resource management. It has ratified
major treaties related to oil spills (Civil Liability Conventions/Protocols and
International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund Convention/Protocols,
both in 1997); to waste management (London Convention in 1973, Basel
Convention in 1993 and the Global Plan of Action for the Protection of
the Marine Environment from Land-Based Sources and Activities); to habi-
tats and species (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
of Wild Fauna and Flora in 1981, World Heritage in 1985, Convention
on Biological Diversity in 1993, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of
International Importance in 1994, and Bonn Convention on Migratory
Species in 1994); and other treaties broadly related to marine environmen-
tal issues such as United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and Agenda 21.
Thus, an honest assessment of the discourse that comes from the state,
through government issuances and actions, as well as from local actors such
as civil society and community organizations, would reveal an e nvironment
30
Jay Batongbacal and Robert Jara, “National/Sub-National Collaboration in National
Oceans Policies: Philippines” (PowerPoint Presentation), n.d.
122 A.P. CONTRERAS
in the Philippines that is conducive for the advancement of the principles

of human security vis-à-vis how local communities engage their coastal and
marine resources. However, while the discourse of resource management,
particularly of ICM, has fully recognized human security, this is a discourse
that is seen as outside the sphere of “security,” particularly of maritime security.
The challenge, therefore, is to integrate and bring in the “ordinary”
discourses of sustainable livelihoods and resource management to mari-
time security by making coastal management a deliberate discourse for
human security in marine and coastal environments. The absence of an
integrated national policy framework on coastal and oceans governance
may in fact provide a disguised blessing, for it enables the multiplication
of local initiatives to become stronger foundations for the development
of a “nationalized discourse.” The ill-fated development experiments
in the past were characterized by a preponderance of state-centric
approaches implemented as top-down, command and control directives
to relatively weak local institutions. The case of the Philippines might
just be a good example to reverse this, by building up from local coastal
initiatives a strong national coastal and oceans policy framework. In fact,
several initiatives started a few years ago, in which existing coastal and
marine policies were reviewed, and in which multi-sectoral consultations
were made to craft an ocean governance regime that reflects the archi-
pelagic nature of the Philippines, and embodies the principles of sustain-
able development. It is through these venues that human security can be
brought in to converse with, if not transform, the militaristic doctrine
that still lingers in the maritime security discourse in the country.
What should take place, therefore, is a deliberate advocacy to articulate
the current discourse of ICM, and its associated community-based coastal
resources management strategies, as discourses of human security, and by
extension, of maritime security. Furthermore, while this alternative discourse
may not address directly the issues of terrorism and transboundary illegal
marine activities, it could provide a template for the development of alterna-
tive strategies to deal with these problems. In fact, experiences in commu-
nity-based interventions against illegal fishing, like Bantay Dagat, and in the
development of peace zones by peace activists in conflict-stricken areas can
be among those that can be used as models. Furthermore, the privileging
of good governance parameters, such as transparency, accountability and
stakeholder participation, which serves as one of the pillars of community-
based coastal resources management, are also the same vehicles that could
propel human security concerns into the heart of the maritime security
discourse. This would increase the capacity of an informed citizenry to make

demands to the maritime industry for greater efficiency in its services, as
well as greater accountability for its flaws, which would enhance maritime
safety.
Concluding Remarks
In the final analysis, the discourse of ordinary Filipinos, as they relate to
their seas, is one in which their consciousness is directed at those that have
impacts on their livelihoods. The traditional discourse on military security,
while in essence does not exclude such concerns from its considerations,
nevertheless falls into a trap of being fixated on statist concepts of territo-
rial integrity and freedom from external aggression and internal rebellion.
A discourse that has more meaning to ordinary peoples, while seemingly
mundane in its manifestation, could be extended to include in its reach
those that are traditionally seen at a distance, but may have implications to
the security of their everyday lives.
Thus, it would be easier to bring into ordinary people’s consciousness
the risks associated with the “bigger” threats. Fishers have been known
to be risk-takers. After all, every time they set out to the open sea, they
take enormous risks to face the uncertain openness of the ocean. Their
daily lives are rituals of taking the insecurities of their environment as a
challenge they have to face. Their resources consist of their knowledge of
the oceans, as well as their reliance on each other to build a community.
It is rare in the Philippines for fishers to go out alone. It is in their sense
of community that they become secure. It is this discourse of the ordinary
that has to be tapped by official state discourses as we craft a more com-
prehensive framework for keeping the oceans safe not only from maraud-
ing pirates and terrorists, but from the hazards of climate change, global
warming and ecological degradation, and from the security threat that
lurks in our minds, from ourselves and the limitations we impose on our
imaginations.
It is most fortunate that the stage is set for the articulation of human
security considerations in traditional maritime discourse in the Philippines.
The greater risk, however, remains in the very institution that limits the
spaces already opened. Ironically, it is the same institutional domain which,
in the guise of making our lives more secure, has deliberately closed and
undermined the openings already made, with its fixation on militaristic
124 A.P. CONTRERAS
solutions, and by deploying the power of the state against its perceived
enemies. The challenge, therefore, is to engage this discourse, and bring
in the ordinary into the official domain, and transport our everyday
imaginations of a secure maritime environment beyond the state and into
people’s lives.
CHAPTER 7
Japan’s Maritime Security: Continuity

and Post-Cold War Evolution
Yoichiro Sato
Introduction
Japan’s maritime security interests have been diverse yet constant. A coun-
try with high population density, Japan prior to World War Two already
had expansive distant water fishing operations. The poverty and hunger
following the country’s defeat in the war turned Japan toward the mari-
time domain again for quick and abundant supply of protein. Increased
competition in international fishing and possible threats of resource deple-
tion led Japan to take an active part in international politics of resource
management both to assure sustainable use of the resource and protect the
country’s fair share.
Japan’s dependence on key sea-lanes for trade of energy resources
and merchandize goods increased with the country’s industrialization.
Militarily, Japan relied on the alliance with the USA for sea-lane security,
while concentrating on political stabilization of the coastal states (mostly
in non-communist Southeast Asia) through economic assistance. Japan’s
maritime security role gradually expanded, yet its attention to sea-lane
Y. Sato (*)
College of Asia Pacific Studies, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Beppu, Japan

126 Y. SATO
security during the Cold War years was at best secondary as the force
structure of the self-defense forces was geared toward an integrated con-
tainment strategy of the USA.
During the post-Cold War period, Japan has become more active in
looking after its own maritime security interests. Traditional military secu-
rity concerns remain high in East Asia, despite the end of the Cold War
and reduced threats of Russia. North Korea’s increasing development
of and reliance on strategic nuclear missiles pose threats to Japan, while
China’s naval buildup worries Japan. The country now faces newer types
of maritime threats, such as piracy against its merchant ships, illicit traf-
ficking, and extreme environmental activists against its fishery operators.
Japan has slowly moved away from its “self-defense” orientation in the
post-Cold War period. While the USA remains Japan’s primary ally, secu-
rity partnerships between Japan and other countries in Asia have devel-
oped to address various maritime security issues. Furthermore, maritime
security cooperation with Southeast Asian partners is serving the dual pur-
poses of controlling maritime crimes by non-state actors and checking
against Chinese maritime expansion.
Japan’s Maritime Security During the Cold War

Japan’s maritime security interests during the Cold War years included
both protection from the threats that originated in hostile states and the
threats from non-state sources. However, the weight of the threats from
the Soviet Union was so predominant that most other security concerns
were viewed through the foreign policy framework, which was designed
to contain the Soviet Union. While the post-World War Two Japanese
foreign policy was restricted by the country’s pacifist constitution, the
Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) shouldered an increas-
ing military burden in the combined defense role with US military forces
during the 1980s.
Japan’s economic interests at sea during the Cold War period were
mostly confined to protection of the increasingly vital sea-lanes south-
westward. While the role of the JMSDF in achieving this objective was
limited during the 1970s, the 1980s witnessed Japan take a more active
naval role in sea-lane defense as the Soviet Union appeared to have been
taking advantage of the détente of the 1970s to gain a military advantage
over Western countries.
JAPAN’S MARITIME SECURITY: CONTINUITY AND POST-COLD WAR EVOLUTION 127
The Cold War period also coincided with a period of major growth of
the international law of the sea. Japan as an archipelagic nation off the east-
ern edge of the Eurasian continent, which had developed globally active
long-distance fishing operations, had a major stake in the negotiations
of this law. While Japan’s legal position reflected its ambiguous attitude
towards the Soviet Union during the détente period, its actual defense
strategy during the 1980s exceeded the modest territorial sea claim Japan
made in the previous decade.
Food (Fishing)
During the early days of the Cold War when Japan was still recovering
from the damage and poverty from its defeat in World War Two, the sea
became the immediate source of food and employment for the Japanese.
Resumption of fishing activities faced several obstacles, however. The water
around the Soviet-occupied islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan, and
the Habomais, which yielded rich seafood resources, was no longer acces-
sible for the Japanese fishermen, until limited access with payment of a
fee was allowed later during the 1970s. Japan’s effort to resume Antarctic
whaling was opposed by Australia with a fresh memory of Japan’s south-
ern military advance crossing the equator and was only made possible by
General MacArthur’s favorable intervention.1
Japan quickly rebuilt its long-distance fishing fleet, but increasing coastal
states’ claims of exclusive fishing and economic zones gradually pushed
the Japanese long-distance fishing activities into the shrinking high seas.
Even the high seas fishing did not remain free of regulations. Drawing of
international maritime exclusive economic zone (EEZ) boundaries meant
nothing for highly migratory species like tuna, which were caught both
within EEZs and the high seas. The declining stock estimate of highly
migratory species, such as Atlantic bluefin tuna, since the 1970s and the
entry of new countries into this fishing resulted in international fish-
ing quota allocations, in which Japan’s share was drastically reduced.2 A
1
Shirley Scott, “Australian Diplomacy Opposing Japanese Antarctic Whaling 1945–1951:
The Role of Legal Argument,” Australian Journal of International Affairs 53:2 (1999),
pp. 179–192.
2
Masayuki Komatsu and Hisashi Endo, Kokusai Maguro Saiban [International Tuna
Tribunal], (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2002), pp. 37–43.
128 Y. SATO
similar regulation was also applied to newly threatened species, such as

Southern bluefin tuna.3
Transformation of the international management of whale resources
posed a different kind of challenge to Japan’s whaling interests. Started as
a mechanism to ensure (though unsuccessfully) sustainable utilization of
whale species in 1932, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was
joined by an increasing number of conservationist states which preferred
to permanently ban whaling all together. The adoption by the IWC of a
suspension of commercial whaling in 1982 left Japan with a limited win-
dow to legally continue harvesting only the less threatened minke whales
under research whaling programs. The confrontation between the utili-
tarian states and the conservationist states has paralyzed the IWC meet-
ings, and Japan’s research whaling has faced sporadic legal challenges by
the latter states. In recent years, Japan’s research whaling efforts in the
Antarctic Sea have faced physical obstructions by radical environmental
activist groups, such as Sea Shepherd, whose members have attempted
to disable Japanese ships by dropping ropes in their paths. Obstructionist
tactics escalated as the members threw acid bombs at, rammed a spe-
cially equipped speedboat at, and forcefully boarded a Japanese ship. The
Japanese government has dispatched coast guard officers on board the
whaling ship to protect its research whaling fleet.4
A similar transformation of the international management philosophy
is showing an early sign over Atlantic bluefin tuna. Faced with a severely
declining stock, international conservationist groups have actively lobbied
for listing of the species as “endangered” in the Washington Treaty, which
bans international trade of such species. Their efforts attracted some gov-
ernments’ support in Europe and the USA when Monaco proposed a
trade ban on the species in 2009.5 Japan actively opposes a trade ban on
3
Yoichiro Sato, “Fishy Business: A Political-Economic Analysis of the Southern Bluefin
Tuna Dispute,” Asian Affairs: An American Review 28:4 (2002), pp. 217–237; Yoichiro
Sato, “The Southern Bluefin Tuna Regime: Rebuilding Cooperation,” New Zealand
International Review 26:4 (July/August 2001), pp. 9–13; Masayuki Komatsu and Hisashi
Endo, Kokusai Maguro Saiban [International Tuna Tribunal], (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten,
2002), pp. 60–66, 87–195.
4
Martin Fackler and Mark MacDonald, “Japanese Coast Guard Arrests Anti-Whaling
Skipper,” New York Times, 12 March 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/
world/asia/13whale.html (Accessed on 14 August 2012).
5
Juliet Eilperin, “U.S. backs international trade ban on Atlantic bluefin tuna,” Washington
Post, 4 March 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti-
cle/2010/03/03/AR2010030301436.html (accessed on 23 August 2012).
Atlantic bluefin tuna and tries to keep the management of the species
within the framework of sustainable utilization.
Energy (Oil Shift)

Japan’s lack of its own energy resources is a major driver of its maritime
security policy. While lack of oil amidst the prolonged war with China
during the 1930s eventually led to Japan’s determination to invade
Southeast Asia to secure oil at the risk of war against the USA, Japan’s
industrialization since the 1960s drastically increased the country’s
dependence on imported oil to an even greater extent. Japan’s post-
World War Two energy security depended on the military alliance with
the USA and its own diplomatic efforts to secure supply and passage of
oil from the Middle East through the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asian
sea-lanes.
While frequent ground wars in the Middle East (i.e., the 1973 Arab-
Israeli war, the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, the Persian Gulf War of 1991,
and the Iraq War of 2003) disrupted the supply of oil, Japan has also been
concerned about the safety of its long sea-lanes from the Middle East to
Japan. Iran’s location near the strategic choke point of the Hormuz Strait
allows it ability to severely disrupt the oil shipping from major Middle
East producers including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Oil shipments from
North African producers, such as Nigeria and Libya, pass through the
Suez Canal, Red Sea, and the Sea of Aden off Somalia, making the littoral
states of this narrow navigation passage critically important for Japan’s
energy security.
The sea-lanes through the Indian Ocean are exposed to possible naval
and air attacks by hostile states, which during the Cold War included the
Soviet Union. The US Navy undertook the defense of Japan’s long sea-
lanes during the Cold War, as Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force lacked
the capability to project force over a long distance for a long duration.
However, under the renewed Soviet threats of naval buildup in the Pacific
and improved air control ability from its Siberian and Far Eastern bases,
Japan during the 1980s shouldered an increasing common defense bur-
den as a member of the Western alliance.6 Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki
announced that Japan was to assume primary responsibility in defending
6
Shigeki Nishimura, Bouei Senryaku to wa nani ka [What is a Defense Strategy?] (Tokyo:
PHP Shinsho, 2012), pp. 57–60.
130 Y. SATO
its southern and southwestern sea-lanes up to 1000 nautical miles from its
metropolitan area.
Southeast Asian waters, which connect the Pacific and Indian Oceans,
host several sea-lanes that are used by Japan’s oil shipments. The Malacca
Straits’ strategic significance has not declined since the days of British naval
superiority in the previous century.7 Soviet naval presence at the Cam Ranh
Bay in Vietnam after the US withdrawal from the country in 1975 posed a
threat to the shipping lane from the Malacca Straits through to the South
China Sea.8 On the other hand, the improved political stability of the lit-
toral states of Southeast Asia since then minimized the risk of disruption
to the sea passage from minor regional conflicts. Japan aided the improve-
ment of the navigational safety of the Malacca Straits by conducting straits
surveys and installing lane-marking buoys.9 Furthermore, Indonesia’s pro-
US diplomatic shift after the Gestapu coup in October 1965 and renun-
ciation of the confrontasi (confrontation policy) against Malaysia and
Singapore made passage through the Malacca and other Indonesian straits
(such as Lombok, Sunda, and Sulawesi) safer. Indonesian straits were also
important for Japan’s primary coal imports from Australia.
Asian Trade and Merchant Fleet

Political stability on the ground in Southeast Asia, maritime security in
Southeast Asian waters, and the region’s economic growth had mutu-
ally enhancing effects, thereby creating a positive upward spiral. Japan’s
economic assistance to the region under the Fukuda Doctrine since the
second half of the 1970s not only filled the void left by the withdrawal
of the US military from Vietnam, but also more effectively contained the
spread of communism in the region through rapid economic growth.10
7
Japan benefitted from the British intelligence from Singapore in planning the naval
engagement against the Russian Baltic Fleet during the Russo-Japanese War.
8
However, the limited nature of this threat is explained in details by Nishimura. Nishimura,
pp. 49–51.
9
Yoichiro Sato, “Southeast Asian Receptiveness to Japanese Maritime Security
Cooperation,” Asia-Pacific Papers (September 2007), Honolulu: Asia-Pacific Center for
Security Studies, 3; David Fouse and Yoichiro Sato, “Enhancing Basic Governance: Japan’s
Comprehensive Counterterrorism Assistance to Southeast Asia,” Asia-Pacific Papers
(February 2006), Honolulu: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 8.
10
Walter Hatch and Kozo Yamamura, Asia in Japan’s Embrace: Building A Regional
Production Alliance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
The political unity of the original members of the Association of Southeast

Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China’s abandonment of exporting com-
munist revolutions in the region also resulted in a stable regional security
environment.
Japan’s export of capital goods to Southeast Asia and active direct
investments contributed to industrialization of the Southeast Asian coun-
tries and further growth of trade in the region. The increasing regional
trade elevated the importance of Asian sea-lanes for Japan and its trade
partners.
While the overall maritime security environment in Southeast Asia
improved due to the détente, the ending of the Vietnam War, and the
stabilizing of domestic politics in key littoral countries, new territorial dis-
putes emerged over features (islands, atolls, rocks, and reefs) in the South
China Sea during the 1970s. Although the limited military skirmishes
between China and Vietnam and China and the Philippines did not pose
tangible threats to the maritime sea-lanes, the disputes since then have
represented a potential threat to freedom of navigation in these waters in
the international legal sense.
SCS Disputes and Law of the Sea

The race by China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asian littoral states (Vietnam,
the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei) to occupy and claim features in
the South China Sea was a direct result of the discovery of oil deposits
in the region in the late 1960s. Anticipation of the rising international
legal norms of EEZs and the continental shelf, combined with tangible
resource prospects, has turned mostly uninhabitable navigational hazards
into potential bases of extensive maritime claims.
Japan throughout the Cold War period refrained from taking sides
in the South China Sea disputes and encouraged the diplomatic efforts
among the disputing countries to end the competition and avoid incidents
between their military and security forces. Japan could sustain this neutral
stance for two reasons. Firstly, the US Navy remained the dominant force
in the region, despite the Soviet deployment to Vietnam. Secondly, none
of the claimant countries including China explicitly challenged freedom
of navigation outside their claimed territorial waters. Legal norms under
the law of the sea were observed. In short, the South China Sea sea-lane
remained open.
132 Y. SATO
Burden Sharing
Intensification of the Cold War confrontation between the USA and
the Soviet Union during the 1980s, however, led Japan to shoulder an
increasing defense burden in the maritime domain. The Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan in the late 1970s alerted the Western allies of the pos-
sibility of further Soviet advance into the Middle East. More frequent
deployments of the US Seventh Fleet to the Indian Ocean region left
a vacuum in the Western Pacific, while the Soviet Union enhanced its
Pacific naval bases including Cam Ranh Bay and deployed the first aircraft
carrier to the region. Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki’s commitment to the
sea-lane defense was to counter the Soviet naval buildup in the Western
Pacific with a combined effort of Japan and the USA. However, given the
political sensitivity of Asian countries about Japan’s military roles beyond
its own territorial defense, the distance of 1000 nautical miles from the
metropolitan area was declared as Japan’s area of responsibility, thereby
avoiding military activities in the South China Sea and domestic political
backlash from the leftist-pacifists.
The other pillar of Japan’s maritime strategy during the 1980s was
denial of passage by Soviet ships and submarines in an event of global or
regional military conflict. Linkage of Soviet naval bases in the Pacific (Cam
Ranh Bay, Vladivostok, and Petropavlovsk) was sustained only through
narrow straits adjacent to the Japanese archipelago (Tsushima, Tsugaru,
and Soya Straits). The combined strategy of the USA and Japan to lock in
Soviet strategic nuclear missile submarines in the Sea of Okhotsk and hunt
them there in order not to allow the Soviets survivable second-strike capa-
bility led Japan to enhance its anti-submarine capabilities through acquisi-
tion of P3-C airplanes and Aegis destroyer ships.11
Section Conclusion (the Cold War Period)

Thus, Japan’s maritime security interests have been diverse yet constant.
The seas as a source of food may have declined in relative terms, as the
country’s economy has industrialized and diversified and supply of food
has depended more on trade. Nonetheless, the institutionalized fish-
ing interests do remain a key consideration of Japan’s maritime policy.
Securing a fair share for the domestic industry within the international
11
Nishimura, Bouei Senryaku to wa nani ka, pp. 38–51, 133–153.
resource management framework for sustainable utilization has been

attempted through legal, political, and more recently security approaches.
Increasing dependence on sea-lanes for trade of energy resources and
merchandize goods has belatedly been accompanied by gradual expan-
sion of Japan’s maritime security roles. However, predominance of the
US Navy in the Western Pacific, the limited nature of maritime threats in
Southeast Asia, and US strategic priority towards the Soviet nuclear threat
during the Cold War years led Japan to focus its efforts on the northern
maritime frontiers and remain a limited participant in regard to its mari-
time security interests southwestward.
Japan’s Maritime Security Post-Cold War

The post-Cold War period marked a limited shift of Japan’s maritime
security concerns and strategy. The dominant threat of the Soviet Union
diminished, as the rise of China and its military expansion became a new
potential threat. Yet, China’s economic integration with the Western world
is moderating the potential rivalry with the USA, unlike the all-front con-
frontation between the USA and the Soviet Union. Furthermore, mari-
time security threats from non-state actors, such as pirates and terrorists,
present the major states with some limited windows of security coopera-
tion, despite the remaining and emerging rivalries among them.
For Japan, this post-Cold War transition has been a pattern of trial
and error. During the few years immediately following the collapse of
the Soviet Union, Japan explored regional management of security in the
multilateral ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) while seeking a voice at the
United Nations Security Council by pursuing a permanent seat there. The
multilateral euphoria of the early-1990s, however, was quickly replaced
by efforts to strengthen the bilateral alliance with the USA during the lat-
ter half of the 1990s, as China demonstrated its intention to monopolize
Asia’s regional leadership.
Japan’s maritime security concerns and its strategy to deal with them
have developed under this overarching geostrategic shift. The following
section will examine Japan’s continuing and emerging maritime security
concerns and interests in light of the growing geopolitical rivalry with
China, the integration of Asian economies including China, the enhance-
ment of the US-Japan alliance, and the increasing regional security role
of Japan.
134 Y. SATO
Chinese Naval Expansion

The constant increase of the Chinese military budget, enabled by rapid
economic growth of the past two decades, has transformed the Chinese
military in a way that increasingly counters the maritime dominance in
the Western Pacific of the combined forces of the USA and Japan. China
has prioritized modernization of its naval force and air control ability first
along its coastline but then further out into the Western Pacific. Its focus
on selective denial capability in the East and South China Sea against
US carrier groups has manifested in the upgrading of submarine forces,
including the development of new nuclear-powered submarines and the
construction of a modern submarine base on Hainan Island. The new
anti-ship ballistic missiles that China has developed pose threats to the US
carrier groups as well. In addition, the new fighter planes China deploys
are altering the balance of air control abilities between Taiwan and China,
as well as between Japan and China.
China’s increasing maritime strength has been alerting the US allies
in East Asia, including Japan and Taiwan. China’s claim to Taiwan is
backed with increasing military capability to invade the island. Japan fears
a Chinese military occupation of the disputed Senkaku Islands12 and more
Chinese maritime resource exploitation in the disputed waters backed by
its military. In the South China Sea, the intensification of disputes due
largely to the setting of deadlines for continental shelf boundary claims
by the UN Law of the Sea Commission on the Limitation of Continental
Shelf has pressed China into making previously ambiguous claims more
explicit in words and in actions.13 Frequent arresting of Vietnamese and
Filipino fishermen in the disputed waters and harassments against US and
Vietnamese research ships by Chinese maritime patrol boats within the last
three years suggest that China is not only claiming legal EEZ status inside
the notorious nine-dash line, but also treating the area as if it were the
country’s territorial waters. Seeing the increasing assertiveness of China
12
The 2012 Defence Whitepaper of Japan has a subheading, “Enhancing capabilities to
respond to attacks on offshore islands,” in which a Senkaku contingency is very much
implied. Ministry of Defense (Japan), Defense of Japan 2012, Part II, “The Basics of Japan’s
Defense Policy and Dynamic Defense Force,” Chapter 2, “The National Defense Program
Guidelines,” Section 2, “Contents of the 2010 NDPG.” http://www.mod.go.jp/e/
publ/w_paper/pdf/2012/21_Part2_Chapter2_Sec2.pdf (accessed on 22 August 2012).
13
Yoichiro Sato, “Japan and the South China Sea Dispute: A Stakeholder’s Perspective” in
The South China Sea Dispute, Ian Storey, ed., (Singapore: ISEAS, forthcoming).
and possible risk to Japan’s navigation rights, Japan has moved away from
its neutral stance. Previously, Japan, as a country with no territorial claim
in the area, encouraged all disputing parties equally to negotiate a code
of conduct to minimize the risk of accidental conflict escalation. Today,
while Japan continues to encourage a multilateral solution of the disputes,
it holds China responsible for the stalled negotiation and hedges against
a possible breakdown of the negotiation by bilaterally engaging in the
capacity building of the Southeast Asian maritime forces, including the
Philippines and Vietnam.14
Resource Competition
The rapid industrialization of China and spread of automobiles there have
shifted China’s energy portfolio from one with heavy reliance on domestic
coal to one with increasing reliance on imported petroleum. China’s thirst
for the global oil and gas supply has resulted in increased competition in
East Asia and elsewhere.
China has been the dominant exporter of various “rare earth” minerals,
which are necessary for electronic products. Major importers at the World
Trade Organization have protested China’s strategic use of this export
dominance since 2007.15 Japan is entitled to the sixth largest maritime
EEZ in the world nearing 4.5 million square kilometers.16 The resource
potential of the seabed in Japan’s EEZs and its claimed continental shelf
has been substantiated, for example, by a recent discovery of rare earth
around the Minami-Torishima Island.17 This could counter China’s dip-
lomatic use of the rare earth card if Japan finds a way of profitable com-
mercial exploitation. Other potential seabed resources include methane
hydrate—a crystalized form of methane gas found in the cold deep water.
14
Ibid.
15
“US, EU and Japan challenge China on rare earth at WTO,” BBC News Business, 13
March 2012. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17348648 (accessed on 23 August
2012).
16
Asahiko Taira, Yoshihiro Tsuji, and Hideyuki Ueda, Kaitei Shigen Taikoku Nippon [The
Seabed Resource Superpower Japan] (Tokyo, ASCII Media Works, 2012), pp. 14–15. The
figure is inclusive of the disputed areas.
17
“Rare earth nihyaku nen bun ijo, Minami-Torishima keitei ni, Tokyo-dai ga kakunin
[200+ years’ worth of rare earth on the seabed of Minami-Tori Island, confirmed by Tokyo
University],” Asahi Shimbun, 29 June 2012. http://www.asahi.com/business/
update/0629/TKY201206290256.html (accessed on 23 August 2012).
136 Y. SATO
In the East China Sea, China has been pumping gas from the seabed
at the Chunxiao/Shungyo gas field. Japan suspects that the gas field
stretches on both sides of the equi-distant maritime boundary, which
Japan claims, and has requested sharing of geological data by China.
China, which claims a maritime boundary further southeast toward the
Okinawan Islands based on a continental shelf claim, has refused the
Japanese request on a ground that the gas field is exclusively inside the
Chinese water. In 2005, the Japanese government granted permission to
a private company to test-drill the areas adjacent to the Chinese gas rig,
but on the Japanese side of the Japan-claimed boundary.18 However, no
actual Japanese drilling has taken place to date due to the fear of Chinese
military harassment. In 2008, China agreed to a “joint development” of
the Chunxiao/Shungyuo field, but the two governments have not agreed
on the terms and the negotiation has been suspended since the collision
incident between two Japanese Coast Guard (JCG) boats and a Chinese
fishing boat off the disputed Senkaku Island in September 2010.19 Both
China and Japan have dispatched their naval assets to the region, height-
ening the chance of accidentally triggering a conflict. Another prospective
gas field (Asunaro) is proximate to the area in which South Korea and
Japan have agreed to set up a joint development zone, further complicat-
ing the situation.
China’s objection to Japan’s resource claims does not stop in the
disputed waters. Japan’s continental shelf claim from Okinotori Island
(which does not overlap with any of the Chinese claimed waters) has been
opposed by China.20 Three possible reasons can be speculated for this
opposition. First, the Japanese claim would reduce the high sea where
18
Mark J. Valencia, “The East China Sea Dispute: Context, Claims, Issues, and Possible
Solutions,” Asian Perspective 31:1 (2007), p. 128.
19
“Higashi shinakai gasuden kosho, chugokugawa saikai he no meigen sakeru [China
avoids explicit words toward reopening the negotiation on East China Sea gas field],”
Mainichi Shimbun, 6 August 2012. http://mainichi.jp/select/news/
20120807k0000m020053000c.html (accessed on 23 August 2012).
20
“Reaction of China to the submission made by Japan to the UN Commission on the
Limits of the Continental Shelf”, CML/2/2009, 6 February 2009 http://www.un.org/
Depts/los/clcs_new/submissions_files/jpn08/chn_6feb09_e.pdf; The CLCS ruled on parts
of the Japanese continental shelf claim on 26 April 2012, which included a favourable ruling
endorsing Japan’s baseline around Okinotori Island, “Okinotori-shima kaiiki no tairikudana
enshin, nihon no shinsei kokusai kikan mitomeru [An international organization approves
Japan’s application to extend continental shelf in the Okinotori water],” Asahi Shimbun, 28
April 2012 http://www.asahi.com/politics/update/0428/TKY201204280012.html.
seabed resources belong to humankind in general; China as a technologi-

cally capable country claims a share of this emerging resource. Second, the
objection could add a card to the hand of China in its diplomatic dealings
with Japan; this might be of most practical use for China in its negotiation
of overall maritime demarcation with Japan; South Korea also objects to
Japan’s claim from the Okinotori.21 Third, the location of the Okinotori
near the midpoint between Taiwan and US bases in Guam might mean
that comprehensive development and possible militarization of the island
by Japan would aid US intervention in Taiwan Strait contingencies.
North Korea
The heightening of tension with North Korea since the late-1990s has
also had maritime dimensions. The increasing ranges of newer North
Korean ballistic missiles have urged Japan to upgrade its sea-based inter-
ceptive capability. Going after the illicit funding sources of North Korea’s
nuclear and missile programs, as well as guarding against spy incursions
and abductions of Japanese citizens, required that Japan enhance its mari-
time patrol and border control.
The North Korean testing of its Nodong ballistic missile in 1993 for
the first time alerted Japan of possible missile attack against the western
half of its territory. The newer Tepodong missile, tested in 1998, expanded
this fear to the whole of Japan. The North Korean missile testing served
as a catalyst to Japan’s decision to join the US-led missile defense. Japan
has retrofitted its Aegis-type destroyers with newly developed Standard
Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors to shoot down hostile ballistic missiles.
The increased disclosure of the cases of suspected abduction of Japanese
citizens in the late-1990s also resulted in calls for improved coastal patrol
against incursions by North Korean ships. In two incidents in 1999 and
2001, hot pursuits by the JMSDF and JCG vessels accompanied use of
weapons—unprecedented warning shots in the first incident, and an
unprecedented exchange of fire and sinking of the suspected vessel in the
second incident.22 The two incidents led to the revision of relevant codes
21
“Reaction of Korea to the submission made by Japan to the UN Commission on the
Limits of the Continental Shelf”, MUN/046/09, 27 February 2009 http://www.un.org/
Depts/los/clcs_new/submissions_files/jpn08/kor_27feb09.pdf.
22
National Police Agency (Japan), “Kitachosen no tainichi kousaku katsudo [North
Korea’s sabotage activities against Japan].” http://www.npa.go.jp/archive/keibi/syouten/
syouten271/japanese/0402.html (accessed on 23 August 2012).
138 Y. SATO
to relax regulations against the use of weapons. While most suspected

abduction cases (disappearances of Japanese citizens from various coastal
locations on the Sea of Japan) occurred during the 1980s, more recent
incursions by North Korean ships seem to relate to illicit trafficking activi-
ties (narcotics, counterfeit cigarettes, and currencies).23 Suspension of the
direct sea route used by North Korean residents in Japan to visit their
relatives in North Korea was also aimed at curtailing the money flow into
North Korea.24
North Korea’s crisis diplomacy as represented in the nuclear and mis-
sile tests in 2006, 2007, and 2009, elevated the Japanese fear. Japan has
been actively participating in the US-led multilateral Proliferation Security
Initiative (PSI) to counter global proliferation of weapons of mass destruc-
tion. JMSDF and JCG ships have been taking part in annual maritime
interdiction exercises. However, neither maritime authority is mandated
to conduct involuntary maritime inspections of foreign registered vessels
outside the Japanese territorial waters, as such action would amount to
an act of war. This shortcoming was clearly identified in 2009 during the
debate following North Korea’s sending of a cargo ship toward Southeast
Asia in the wake of UN Security Council Resolution 1874 that banned the
country from exporting weapons, components, and related technology.25
Malacca Straits Piracy and Terrorism

While the overall security environment in Southeast Asia improved with
economic growth and political stability during the 1980s and the 1990s,
safety of maritime passage through the Malacca Straits remains the fore-
most concern of Japan. The narrow and shallow strait that connects the
Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean has been used by the ever increasing
23
李尙龍, “Kita no mitsuyu mayaku kara gizou tabako ni henkou [North Korean smug-
gling shifts from drugs to counterfeit cigarette,” Daily NK, 2 March 2009. http://japan.
dailynk.com/japanese/read.php?cataId=nk02200&num=4423 (accessed on 23 August
2012).
24
“Nihon Mangyonbo-go nyuko kinshi nado kyuukoumoku no seisai sochi [Japan adopts
nine sanction measures including ban on Mangyonbo’s port entry],” Asahi Shimbun, 5 July
2006. http://www2.asahi.com/special/060705/TKY200607050313.html (accessed on
23 August 2012).
25
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874 (2009), 12 June. http://daccess-
dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N09/368/49/PDF/N0936849.pdf?OpenElement
(accessed on 28 August 2012).
number and tonnage of ships. Without any state rivalry, the sheer volume
of traffic has become a major safety issue. Japan has been actively cooper-
ating with Southeast Asian littoral states to assure safety of the Straits by
conducting surveys of the Strait sand installing buoys to mark lanes.26
The major increase in incidents of piracy in the Malacca Strait during
the late-1990s was most likely a product of the Asian economic crisis of
1997–98, which pushed many impoverished Indonesian fishermen into
using their maritime skills for sea robbery and hostage taking at sea. While
most incidents were small in scale, some cases involved seajacking of entire
cargo ships and stealing of their loads. Transnational networking of crimi-
nals was suspected in the case of these larger incidents. Facing increasing
incidents, the poor state of readiness of the Indonesian Navy and lack of
cooperation among Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore were identified as
major limiting factors in law enforcement.
Singapore most acutely felt the threat of maritime piracy and possi-
ble terrorism. The country’s role as the dominant trans-shipping port in
the region had already pushed its combined trade volume (imports and
exports) above its gross domestic product. A major disruption to trade
would be a matter of national economic survival for Singapore. Meanwhile,
Malaysia and Indonesia felt that the financial cost of maintaining security
of the Malacca Straits should be borne by major beneficiaries as well.
The USA proposed a Regional Maritime Security Initiative, but invited
heavy criticism from Malaysia and Indonesia, which jealously guarded their
sovereignty over the Malacca Straits. However, the US shock treatment
in the form of a suggestion of military intervention worked to promote
cooperation among the littoral countries, leading to tri-nation (Indonesia,
Malaysia, and Singapore) coordinated patrol of the Straits and the Eye
in the Sky joint air patrol over the Straits by four countries (Indonesia,
Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand).27
Japan, in a parallel effort, promoted a regional anti-piracy cooperation,
with an emphasis on information sharing among maritime authorities.
26
Security Studies, 3; David Fouse and Yoichiro Sato, “Enhancing Basic Governance: Japan’s
(February 2006), Honolulu: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 8.
27
Yoichiro Sato, “U.S. and Japan in the Malacca Strait: Lending Hands, Not Stepping In,”
PacNet Newsletter, no.29A, Pacific Forum, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 12
July 2004.
140 Y. SATO
Japan’s effort resulted in the establishment of the Regional Cooperation

Against Armed Robbery and Piracy (ReCAAP) mechanism headquartered
in Singapore. Japan’s financial contribution was later joined by other main
users of the straits (China and South Korea), and most Southeast Asian
countries also participated in the network of information sharing. Though
not members, Malaysia and Indonesia voluntarily provided piracy infor-
mation to the ReCAAP as well.28
The decline of piracy incidents in the Malacca Strait since then can
be attributable to many factors—economic recovery being one of them.
Nonetheless, credits are due for ReCAAP. Governments of the Red Sea
coast—the new and most serious piracy hotspot—also developed a regional
cooperation mechanism modeled after ReCAAP under the Djibouti Code
of Conduct.29
Japan’s cooperation with Southeast Asian maritime authorities has
expanded beyond the Malacca Strait geographically and beyond informa-
tion sharing. Japanese aid has been instrumental in the establishment of
a civilian coast guard in the Philippines30 and it is expected to play a simi-
lar role in Vietnam. Their enhanced law enforcement capacities are being
exercised in the South China Sea where they and Japan are faced with
China’s increasingly assertive military and law enforcement actions in the
disputed waters. Undoubtedly, Japan’s closer maritime security coopera-
tion with these Southeast Asian countries is in conscious recognition of
their disputes with growing Chinese maritime power in the South China
Sea.31
28
Security Studies; David Fouse and Yoichiro Sato, “Enhancing Basic Governance: Japan’s
(February 2006), Honolulu: Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.
29
http://oceansbeyondpiracy.org/matrix/activity/djibouti-code-conduct (accessed on
28 August 2012).
30
Japan International Cooperation Agency, “JICA President Akihiko Tanaka Visits the
Philippines,” 10 May 2012. http://www.jica.go.jp/english/news/
field/2012/20120510_01.html (accessed on 28 August 2012).
31
Mihoko Matsubara, Justin Goldman, John Hemmings, Kei Koga, Greer Meisels,
Masamichi Minehata, Lynn Miyahira, and Naoko Noro, “Trilateral Strategic Cooperative
Mechanism Between Japan, the United States, and Vietnam: A Proposal,” Issues and Insights
12(1), Honolulu: Pacific Forum, March 2012. http://csis.org/files/publication/issuesin-
sights_v12n01.pdf (accessed on 28 August 2012).
Japan’s participation in anti-piracy patrol off Somalia since 2010 is also

important in three regards. First, it has assured continuous Japanese naval
presence in the Indian Ocean region since 2001. (Japan sent naval ships
to take part in the Operation Enduring Freedom against maritime smug-
gling by the Taliban and Al Quaeda.32) Second, Japan’s escorting of its
own merchant fleet only through the Sea of Aden appears unilateral, but
sharing of maritime intelligence with other patrolling states in the region
makes its action part of a broader coalition. Third, participation of both
JMSDF and JCG assets and personnel in this anti-piracy operation marked
the first joint operation between the two, which Japan increasingly envi-
sions as a model to deal with future maritime threats. However, it remains
hesitant to make it a general mode of operation due to the ongoing con-
stitutional debate between self-defense and collective defense as well as
military and civilian security roles.33
Collective Security
The post-Cold War period has witnessed Japan’s active pursuit of col-
lective security. On one hand, the end of the Cold War to some extent
relieved Japan from placing its budget priority on military defense against
overwhelming Soviet threats. It became possible for Japan to divert
resources into addressing other maritime security issues. The rising secu-
rity threats from non-state actors, such as pirates and terrorists, neces-
sitated cooperation between states in order to counter these threats. The
1990s witnessed growing regional security multilateralism, not only in
32
Yoichiro Sato, “Japan’s Security Policies during the OEF and OIF: Incremental
Responses Meet Great Expectations,” Asia-Pacific Security Studies 2:6 (August 2003), Asia-
Pacific Center for Security Studies.
33
For example, the 2012 report by the Ocean Policy Discussion Group of the Ministry of
Land, Infrastructure, and Transportation (MLIT), which supervises the civilian coast guard,
exclusively focus on matters within the MLIT jurisdiction and avoids making any reference
to the role of the SDF. Ocean Policy Discussion Group, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,
and Transportation (Japan), Kokudo kotsusho kaiyo seisaku kondankai houkokusho—shin no
kaiyo kokka wo mezashite [Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transportation Ocean Policy
Discussion Group Report—Toward a true maritime nation], March 2012. http://www.mlit.
go.jp/common/000205494.pdf (accessed on 28 March 2012) The two facts that the port-
folio of Minister of Ocean Policy has concurrently been held by the Minister of Land,
Infrastructure, and Transportation (MLIT) and that the ocean policy study group was placed
under the MLIT indicate that coordinating Japan’s maritime policy at the cabinet level has
been extremely difficult.
142 Y. SATO
discussions at ARF, but also in operationalized policy cooperation in anti-

human trafficking, anti-terrorism, and anti-piracy cooperation.
Despite the rising military tension with China, Japan’s pursuit of mul-
tilateral security cooperation continues. Military rivalry with China has
been an obstacle in some maritime security cooperation, such as PSI,
which China sees as a mechanism to strangulate its ally, North Korea.
Nevertheless, Japan has not abandoned the idea that low-level security
cooperation with China can serve as a confidence building measure, which
leads to the formation of a more comprehensive regional multilateral secu-
rity mechanism.34 In the maritime domain, Japan’s proposals for search-
and-rescue exercises and anti-piracy cooperation can be viewed in this
light.35
Basic Ocean Law of 2007

Given the diverse range of issues that involve Japan’s maritime security
interests, the government passed the Basic Ocean Law in 2007 and estab-
lished a national headquarters for comprehensive ocean policy headed by
the Prime Minister and a new Minister of Ocean Policy.36 While the law
was aimed at coordinating government policy at the cabinet level, its suc-
cess has been limited. The fact that the Minister of Land, Infrastructure,
and Transportation has concurrently held the portfolio of Minister of
Ocean Policy is an indication that the headquarters adds little to the exist-
ing policy coordination mechanism at the cabinet level. With frequent
turnovers of prime ministers since 2007, the intended policy coordination
has remained limited.
34
Ministry of Defense (Japan), Defense of Japan, 2012, part III “Measures for the Defense
of Japan,” chapter 3 “Multi-layered Security Cooperation with the International
Community.” http://www.mod.go.jp/e/publ/w_paper/pdf/2012/34_Part3_Chapter3_
Sec1.pdf (accessed on 28 August 2012).
35
Yasuyo Sakata, “Evolving Security Architecture and Agenda for Japan-China
Cooperation,” Tokyo Foundation, 7 August 2012. http://www.tokyofoundation.org/en/
topics/japan-china-next-generation-dialogue/evolving-security-architecture (accessed on
28 August 2012).
36
Masahiro Akiyama, “Enacting the Basic Ocean Law—the Process And the Background,”
a paper prepared for IIPS Symposium on Japan’s Position as a Maritime Nation, 16–17
October 2007, Tokyo. http://www.iips.org/07mar/07marAkiyama.pdf (accessed on 28
August 2012).
Section Conclusion (Post-Cold War)

During the post-Cold War period, Japan has become more active in attend-
ing to its maritime security needs. In addition to the traditional military
security, maritime traffic, and fishery interests, Japan now faces newer types
of maritime threat, such as piracy and illicit trafficking, emanating from
weak governance along its major sea-lanes, and state-sponsored crimes by
North Korea. Japan’s ability to enhance its own patrol and law enforce-
ment capability has increasingly been meshed with the broader security
strategy, which accounts for the changing regional power balance. This
“whole-of-government” approach has been introduced with legislation in
the form of the Basic Ocean Law, although its implementation remains
limited, owing to bureaucratic turf wars.
During the past twenty years Japan has also slowly moved away from
its “self-defense” orientation, which kept the state from participating in
collective security arrangements. While the USA remains the only for-
mal treaty ally of Japan, Japan’s security partnerships with other coun-
tries in Asia have sprung into various functional areas that deal with
non-traditional maritime security issues. Furthermore, maritime security
cooperation with Southeast Asian partners is serving the dual purposes
of controlling maritime crimes by non-state actors and checking against
Chinese maritime expansion.
Conclusion
Japan’s diverse maritime security interests have remained constant. The
end of the Cold War and the subsequent geostrategic shift, changes in
the economic structure, political development in international maritime
law, and new geoscientific discoveries have all contributed to the changing
priorities among these maritime interests; yet the overall list of concerns
has revealed remarkable stability.
The predominance of the US Navy in the Western Pacific, ensuring
Japan’s sea-lane security, is no longer taken as a given, and Japan’s own
military security policy and diplomacy in Southeast Asia increasingly aim
at anchoring US commitment to regional security and supplementing the
decaying US hegemony.
Japan’s effort to enhance its own and its regional partners’ civilian
patrol and law enforcement capability against various maritime crimes by
state and non-state actors has increasingly been meshed with the broader
144 Y. SATO
security strategy. Japan’s effort to build layers of multilateral security part-

nerships in Asia serves multiple objectives. Practically, controlling maritime
crimes by non-state actors is of utmost importance. Regional multilateral-
ism is also viewed as a mechanism to discipline China’s behavior through
shared norms. Japan’s disappointment with the increasing Chinese asser-
tiveness in regional multilateral venues has shifted its focus further into
assuring closer US engagement in regional security matters and counter-
ing Chinese maritime expansion through aid to selective Southeast Asian
countries.
CHAPTER 8
Charting Thailand’s Maritime Security

Policies from 1932 to 2012: A Liberal
International Relations Perspective
Mark David Chong and Surin Maisrikrod
Introduction
The charting of, and accounting for, Thailand’s maritime security poli-
cies has been a somewhat challenging endeavour. It is a perplexing tale of
uneven ebbs and flows, and one that is often ostensibly linked to the pres-
ence or absence of external macro factors of geopolitical significance. In
reality however, this chapter will suggest that the more proximate reason
for the unevenness of this trajectory should be sought closer to home. The
complexity embedded in this analysis arises because of two main reasons.
M.D. Chong (*)

Townsville, QLD, Australia
S. Maisrikrod
Townsville, QLD, Australia
Walailak University, Thai Buri, Tha Sala District, Thailand

146 M.D. CHONG AND S. MAISRIKROD
First, maritime security is no longer singularly concerned with territorial

or political sovereignty (although they are certainly still key). To that end,
Admiral Khamthorn Pumhiran, the then Commander-in-Chief of the
Royal Thai Navy (RTN),1 in March 2009 explains that:
[t]he maritime security threat has changed from dealing primarily with
international conflicts to the more complex circumstantial environments,
which are politically, economically, and socially interrelated. These threats –
maritime terrorism, transnational crimes, piracy, drug-trafficking, illegal
immigration, human trafficking, illegal labor, and national and environmen-
tal disasters – adversely affect national security.2
This extension from traditional to non-traditional or “grey-area” security

issues will also naturally extend and complicate the scope of what is going
to be empirically relevant for the purposes of this chapter.
Second, a nation’s maritime security policies and related naval pro-
curements are not only municipal matters of importance. They are in
fact an indispensable part of a nation’s overall foreign policy platform.
As Admiral Khamthorn further notes, “Thailand cannot deal with these
[maritime security] issues alone, nor can any one country. The crucial fac-
tor in solving these problems lies in cooperation among every country in
the region.”3 Thus, according to Admiral Khamthorn, solutions for such
issues lie primarily in the realm of international relations.
However, the ensuing analysis will actually show that macro level geo-
political factors common in realist and institutionalist paradigms of inter-
national relations will not be able fully to account for the inconsistent
ebbs and flows of relevant Thai governmental policies. Take for example,
Thailand’s procurement of a Spanish-built aircraft carrier in 1992.4 News
of this acquisition (the first of its kind in Southeast Asia) had sent nervous
ripples across the region.5 Thailand’s commissioning of the HTMS Chakri
Naruebet signalled to all and sundry its ambition of being a blue-water
1
Previously known as the Royal Siamese Navy.
2
Wilfried A. Herrmann, ‘The Royal Thai Navy at the Beginning of the Second Decade of
the Twenty-first Century’, in Geoffrey Till and Jane Chan, eds, Naval Modernisation in
South-East Asia: Nature, Causes and Consequences, Oxford: Routledge, 2014, pp. 214–15.
3
Ibid.
4
Or as the RTN calls it—an offshore patrol helicopter carrier.
5
J. N. Mak and B. A. Hamzah, ‘Navy Blues’, Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), 17,
11 (1994), p. 30; James Goldrick and Jack McCaffrie, Navies of South-East Asia: A
Comparative Study, Oxford: Routledge, 2013, p. 167.
CHARTING THAILAND’S MARITIME SECURITY POLICIES FROM 1932 TO 2012... 147
regional maritime power. While Thai waters have indeed been plagued
by overlapping maritime border disputes (particularly with Myanmar and
Cambodia),6 as well as with piratical attacks, this procurement was never-
theless surprising given the absence of any pressing or urgent threat lurk-
ing in Thailand’s territorial and contiguous seas. The RTN has previously
only fought in one naval battle against a foreign power, and that was in
January 1941 against the French.7 Even the Malay-Muslim insurgency
in the deep south of Thailand has been primarily limited to combative
exchanges over land rather than at sea.8 Furthermore, statistics from the
International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Centre (IMB-PRC)
clearly show that while there were some piratical attacks occurring in Thai
waters, these did not represent a significant problem for the country—at
least not to the extent that an aircraft carrier was warranted to address such
maritime depredations.9 This peculiarity in policy emphasis was noticed
as early as 1994, when Mak and Hamzah question why the expansion of
Thailand’s military forces was taking on a “heavy maritime bias.”10 The
authors express their concern that such a shift was
not immediately explicable, given that Thailand [had] no real external

threats to its maritime security. So long as good relations exist with China,
Bangkok need not fear Beijing, and even India’s forces serve more as a
counterweight to Indonesia than a threat to Thailand.11
It is nonetheless obvious to Mak and Hamzah that for “whatever the

reason,…the Thais [were] attempting to build a “two-ocean” navy to
maintain simultaneous control over its eastern and western seaboards,
respectively the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea.”12 As Map 1
below shows, Thailand has a coastline of around 3,219 km divided as it
were by the Peninsula of Malaysia to the south into two distinct maritime
6
Herrmann, The Royal Thai Navy, p. 205.
7
Hartmut Manseck, ‘Royal Thai Navy’, Naval Forces (NF), 28, 5 (2007), p. 102.
8
Goldrick and McCaffrie, p. 171.
9
For statistical purposes, the IMB-PRC defines ‘piracy and armed robbery’ as: “[a]n act of
boarding or attempting to board any ship with the apparent intent to commit theft or any
other crime and with the apparent intent or capability to use force in the furtherance of that
act”: ICC International Maritime Bureau (ICC-IMB), Piracy and Armed Robbery against
Ships Annual Report: 1 January –31 December 2009, London: ICC-IMB, 2010, p. 3.
10
Mak and Hamzah, p. 30.
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid.
Fig. 8.1 Thailand (Source: https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog486/node/

1848)
domains i.e. the Andaman Sea to the west, and the Gulf of Thailand to
the east (Fig. 8.1).13
Mak and Hamzah are therefore proffering an intriguing assessment
of this naval build-up, suggesting perhaps something counterintuitive
behind Thailand’s proactive maritime security policies. With no external
seaborne threat on its horizon, why would Thailand need to purchase an
aircraft carrier? What makes this question even more difficult to answer is
the fact that Thailand’s maritime security policies and naval procurements
do not “conveniently” follow this projected upward trajectory. As Kavi
Chongkittavorn laments (circa 2008):
13
Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA)
Thailand Profile webpage: http://www.pemsea.org/country/thailand.
[a]fter decades of ambivalence and recalcitrance, Thailand has now embarked

on a whole new security scheme – maritime security cooperation – that
would allow the country to provide full surveillance and protection of its
territorial waters as well as ensuring the safety of nearby international sea
lanes for communications….[by] … Thailand …[joining] the Malacca
Straits Patrol agreement along with Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore to
conduct joint sea and air patrols beginning next year, in one of the most
important strategic choke-points.14
As the reader will immediately notice, this 2008 reference to “decades

of ambivalence and recalcitrance” is somewhat at odds with Mak and
Hamzah’s assessment in 1994, as well as that of Thailand’s major acqui-
sition of an aircraft carrier in 1997. Moreover, during this same period
from 1994 to 2008, Thailand was actively participating in a number of
important multilateral anti-piracy/maritime terrorism initiatives. For
example, Thailand joined the USA’s Container Security Initiative on 11
June 2003,15 a programme that was designed to prevent chemical/bio-
logical/nuclear attacks on American ports. Thailand was also a found-
ing member of the Japanese-led Regional Cooperation Agreement on
Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP), a
milestone treaty that was drafted in November 2004, and came into force
in September 2006.16 Yet, despite these multilateral initiatives, it is still
arguable that Chongkittavorn’s apparent disappointment was not unwar-
ranted. This is because the Malacca Straits Patrol agreement that he was
referring to was actually put into effect four years earlier under the aus-
pices of the MALSINDO Malacca Straits Coordinated Patrol (which was
later renamed the Malacca Strait Sea Patrol) on 20 July 2004.17 This was
14
The Nation (Thailand) (TN), 6 October. 2008. Retrieved from http://www.nationmul-
timedia.com/opinion/Thailand-embarks-on-maritime-security-cooperation-30085175.
html (Accessed on 21 January 2015). Please note however that only the aerial patrols were
joint. The naval patrols, however, were coordinated ones: Andrew S. Erickson, ‘Maritime
Security Cooperation in the South China Sea Region’, in Shicun Wu and Keyuan Zou, eds,
Maritime Security in the South China Sea: Regional Implications and International
Cooperation, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009, p. 62.
15
Jessica Romero, ‘Prevention of Maritime Terrorism: The Container Security Initiative’,
Chicago Journal of International Law (CJIL), 4 (2003), p. 600.
16
Joshua H. Ho, ‘Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery in Asia: The ReCAAP
Information Sharing Centre (ISC)’, Marine Policy (MP), 33, 2 (2009), pp. 432–434.
17
J. N. Mak, ‘Unilateralism and Regionalism: Working Together and Alone in the Malacca
Straits’, in Graham Gerard Ong-Webb, ed., Piracy, Maritime Terrorism and Securing the
later supplemented by a joint aerial patrol codenamed “Eyes in the Sky”

on 13 September 2005.18 Notwithstanding the fact that Thailand guards
the northern entrance to the Malacca Strait (via the Andaman Sea), it only
agreed to become a member of these multilateral initiatives through its
navy in 2008 and through its air force in 2009.19 Thus, Chongkittavorn
is lamenting the missed opportunities that could have been exploited had
the country not chosen a path of (relative) ambivalence and recalcitrance.
While this chapter will be positing an alternative explanation to account
for this “ambivalence and recalcitrance”, Chongkittavorn is of the opin-
ion that this was mainly due to the deleterious effects of the 1997 Asian
Financial Crisis, the consequent personnel constraints, as well as an adher-
ence to a narrow mindset of what maritime security traditionally entails
(i.e. military conflicts).20 Furthermore, he points out that unfortunately
Thailand “has never considered itself as part and parcel of littoral states
along the Straits even though the country shares maritime territorial
waters and long coastal lines with Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma and India
that encompasses the Bay of Bengal.”21
Given the above complexity, any attempt to develop a deeper under-
standing of this uneven course will necessitate an analytical exploration
that will go beyond the conventional. While governmental budgetary,
external geopolitical and internal security factors will certainly feature
here, this study will nevertheless contend that the dynamics involved
in such policy-making are likewise significantly influenced by other fac-
tors—in particular, the strong domestic undercurrents involving the Thai
Armed Forces—that may not be apparent at first glance. While there are
many institutional actors that play critical roles in this narrative, for exam-
ple, Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Transport
(Marine Department), the Royal Thai Police (Marine Division), and
the RTN, it is the last of these which holds the most power and sway.
The RTN is the main agency responsible for maritime security, although
it does maintain close collaborative links with the other governmental
Malacca Straits, Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2006, pp. 155–156.

18
Ralf Emmers, ‘The Five Power Defence Arrangements and Defense Diplomacy in
Southeast Asia, Asian Security (AS), 8, 3 (2012), p. 277.
19
Wilfried A. Herrmann, ‘Thailand’s Maritime Challenges and Priorities’, in Joshua H. Ho
and Sam Bateman, eds, Maritime Challenges and Priorities in Asia: Implications for Regional
Security, Oxford: Routledge, 2012, p. 146.
20
TN, 6 October. 2008.
21
Ibid.
departments. This preeminent leadership role in relation to all matters

pertaining to maritime security is clearly evident from various govern-
mental declarations.22 What is latent however is the simmering rivalry
between the RTN and the Royal Thai Army (RTA), and how this uneasy
coexistence profoundly affects the overall direction of the country’s
maritime security policies and naval procurement. In other words, the
nature, and presence or otherwise of threats to Thailand’s seaborne
interests are not necessarily the most important determinants of how this
country formulates its maritime security and procurement policy posi-
tions. Rather, it will be asserted here that Thailand’s maritime security
is actually intimately linked to the role, challenges, and ultimately, the
destiny of the RTN. A variant of this hypothesis was previously put for-
ward by Eric Heginbotham when he argued that a civil-military coalition
theory could be used to explain the rise and fall of Chinese, Indonesian,
and more importantly for this chapter, Thai naval fortunes.23 According
to Heginbotham:
naval officers generally ally with liberal political leaders in domestic politi-
cal battles over the organization of the state, whereas army officers form
alliances with integral nationalist leaders…. Political leaders who emerge
victorious from these struggles seek to protect their positions by promoting
military officers who share their ideology: Liberal leaders generally support
naval interests, integral nationalists frequently back army leaders, and both
often seek to reduce the strength of the other.24
This civil-military coalition theory maintains that military organisations

within developing countries like Thailand are often heavily involved in
domestic politics, and as a result of this involvement, consequent national
strategic policies (including those pertaining to maritime security) are
22
Take for example, Thailand’s Counter-Terrorism Action Plan that was submitted to the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum at the 28th Counter Terrorism Task Force
Meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, on the 29th of January 2013 at p. 5. Retrieved from http://
www.apec.org/Groups/SOM-Steering-Committee-on-Economic-and-Technical-
Cooperation/Working-Groups/~/~/media/Files/Groups/CTAPs/2013/2013_
cttf1_017_Thailand.pdf (Accessed on 21 January 2015).
23
Eric Heginbotham, ‘The Fall and Rise of Navies in East Asia: Military Organizations,
Domestic Politics, and Grand Strategy’, International Security (IS), 27, 2 (2002), p. 87.
24
Ibid.
significantly influenced by the outcomes of such political contestations.25

While there is certainly persuasive evidence to suggest a correlation
between democratically elected liberal parliaments with that of increased
naval procurements, navy officer appointees to key ministerial and/or
military roles, and proactive maritime security policies,26 we would con-
tend however that these coalitions should nevertheless be considered as
merely tools of convenience. Within the specific context of Thai domestic
politics, the RTA and RTN are relatively autonomous sub-governmental
entities—each striving to attain and maintain for itself national relevance
and political power by whatever means available. This feature is particu-
larly demonstrated by the numerous RTA-backed coups that have been
perpetrated in Thailand since 1932, when the RTA and RTN, among
others, first overthrew the absolute monarch, King Rama VII. As such,
affiliations to civilian political parties or leaders in this regard are quite
possibly epiphenomenal in nature. Thus in this light, the ebbs and flows of
Thailand’s maritime security are in reality murky reflections of the RTN’s
fight for survival; its struggle to maintain relevance within the nation’s
consciousness, in the face of existential assault by an immensely politi-
cally powerful RTA. Given the need for an analytical lens that will be able
to uncover how, and explain why, these relevant domestic undercurrents
matter so much, we would argue that a liberal theory of international
politics would be best equipped to interrogate these facts more deeply
and appropriately.27
With those objectives in mind, this chapter will: (1) outline Thailand’s
current maritime security architecture; (2) highlight some of the country’s
more recent notable accomplishments; (3) examine the extent to which
its maritime security policies are reasonable responses to actual threats
to its national security; (4) set out the analytical framework that will be
employed to examine the relevant circumstances; and finally (5) illustrate
how Thailand’s maritime security policies (as well as its naval procure-
ments) are best understood if viewed as a consequence or result of the
internecine conflict between a dominant RTA, and a rearguard acting
RTN.
25
Ibid.
26
Heginbotham, p. 104.
27
Andrew Moravcsik, ‘Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International
Politics’, International Organization (IO), 51 (1997), p. 516.
Thailand’s Current Maritime Security

Architecture
Captain Wachiraporn Wongnakornsawang of the RTN’s Division of
Academic Affairs highlights that navies play integral roles in military, con-
stabulary as well as diplomatic spheres.28 The navy’s role in diplomacy is of
particular importance given the complex interdependent relationships that
countries often forge with one another as part of the ongoing and inex-
orable process of globalisation.29 Additionally, these sub-governmental
international linkages have also proven to be life buoys for the RTN, par-
ticularly during periods of RTA domestic political ascendancy.30 This is
an important point to note because Thailand’s maritime security policies
are, in reality, reflections of the RTN’s naval diplomacy (whether directly
or indirectly via its proxies), and exercised through means of “pres-
ence, symbolic use, coercion and prevention.”31 For example, Captain
Wongnakornsawang notes that
[n]aval presence … can be a routine navigation of naval forces to demon-

strate a permanent national interest in some important areas [,] … a periodic
deployment of naval forces to demonstrate a friendship or support readi-
ness [or] … an emergency deployment to demonstrate a political gesture of
dissatisfaction.32
Symbolic use, however, is more akin to
naval picture-building. It is the deployment of naval forces to demonstrate

their capability and prestige [through having] … capital ships equipped with
powerful firepower together with cutting edge technology [for example,
submarines or aircraft carriers] and highly discipline [sic] crews….33
28
Wachiraporn Wongnakornsawang, The Royal Thai Navy’s Policy on Anti-Piracy as Part
of Naval Diplomacy, Salaya, Nakhon Pathom: Department of Naval Education, Division of
Academic Affairs (Thailand), no date. Retrieved from http://58.97.114.34:8881/aca-
demic/index.php/site_content/656-2013-12-05-13-59-49/2503-the-royal-thai-navy-s-
policy-on-anti-piracy-as-a-part-of-naval-diplomacy.html (Accessed on 21 January 2015).
29
Ibid.
30
31
Wongnakornsawang, op cit.
32
Ibid.
33
Ibid.
Such “symbolic” exertions of diplomatic strength are demonstrated

through “participating in joint exercises, humanitarian missions, peace
operations, and piracy suppression.”34 Hand-in-hand with such symbol-
ism, naval diplomacy through prevention attempts to “build and gain [the]
confidence” of other nations by deploying its naval forces so as to “send
clear messages of reassurance and transparency in order to prevent misun-
derstanding or further conflict.”35 Finally, if all else fails, naval coercion,
is a “diplomatic” tool-of-last-resort “to force the 1target state to stop or
undo an encroachment viewed as threatening to one’s own national inter-
ests…. [or] to blackmail the target state to give up something considered
as one’s own vital national interest.”36
Thailand’s maritime security is operationally under the auspices of
the RTN,37 although it does answer to the Supreme Command of the
Royal Thai Armed Forces (an organisation traditionally controlled
by the RTA).38 To that end, the RTN, through its Thailand Maritime
Enforcement Coordination Centre, provides leadership and guidance to
the Marine Police, the Marine Department, the Customs Department and
the Fisheries Department in matters pertaining to: the illegal narcotics
trade; piracy; illegal migration; those in-distress-at-sea; search and rescue;
disaster relief; preserving and protecting the country’s maritime interests;
and protecting and restoring the maritime environment, within its territo-
rial waters and contiguous zone.39 Duties that relate to the “protection of
maritime sovereignty, the protection of sea lines of communication[,]…
the support for the operation of other services…[,] law enforcement at
sea, protection of maritime resources, fishery protection, combating mari-
time terrorism, anti-piracy operations, disaster relief, hydrographic survey-
ing, search and rescue, and support the development of the country” are
however primarily discharged by the RTN across three naval area com-
mands in the following way:
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid.
37
Suriya Pornsuriya, ‘Thailand’s Perspective’ in Swati Parashar, ed., Maritime Counter-
terrorism: A Pan-Asian Perspective, Delhi: Dorling Kindersley India Pvt. Ltd, 2008, p. 91.
38
Paul Chambers, ‘U-Turn to the Past? The Resurgence of the Military in Contemporary
Thai Politics’, a paper presented at a public forum on “The Military in Thai Politics: What’s
Next?” on 1 September 2009 at the Institute of Security and International Studies,
Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, pp. 6–7. The current Secretary-General of
the National Security Council of Thailand is Lieutenant General Paradorn Pattanatabut.
39
Pornsuriya, op cit, pp. 91–92.
Table 8.1 Major weapons systems in selected Asian states (circa 2012)a
Country Aircraft Principal surface Submarines Major landing
carriers warships hips
Thailand 1 13 0 3
Indonesia 0 14 2 31
Malaysia 0 8 2 0
Singapore 0 12 5 4
a
Andrew T. H. Tan, The Arms Race in Asia: Trends, Causes and Implications, Oxford: Routledge, 2014,
p. 7
• First Region Fleet—northern part of the Gulf of Thailand;

• Second Region Fleet—southern part of the Gulf of Thailand; and
• Third Region Fleet—the Andaman Sea.40
These constabulary tasks are effected through a range of naval ves-

sels, including among others, Chinese-built Naresuan and Jianghu class
frigates, US Knox class frigates, and Rattanakosin class corvettes—all of
which are variously armed with Harpoon, Sea Sparrow, Aspide, Exocet,
and Gabriel missiles as well as torpedoes.41 In addition to these, its aircraft
carrier operates a range of AV-8A Harrier jet fighters and S70B Seahawk
helicopters.42 While Table 8.1 below shows how the RTN’s naval capa-
bilities compare with those of its counterparts in Indonesia, Malaysia and
Singapore, it should be highlighted again that Thailand is currently the
only Southeast Asian country to possess an aircraft carrier. Furthermore,
during the second half of the 1930s, the RTN was actually the first
Southeast Asian nation (and the second Asian country after Japan) to have
submarines in its fleet.43
The formulation of maritime security policy however officially occurs
in the National Security Council—a steering organisation chaired by
40
Ibid., p. 92.
41
Andrew T. H. Tan, ‘The Emergence of Naval Power in the Straits of Malacca’, Defence
Studies (DS), 12, 1 (2012), p. 118.
42
Ibid.
43
Jack McCaffrie, ‘Submarines for South-east Asia: A Major Step?’, in Geoffrey Till and
Jane Chan, eds, Naval Modernisation in South-East Asia: Nature, Causes and Consequences,
Oxford: Routledge, 2014, p. 30; The Nation (Thailand), 5 April. 2011. Retrieved from
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Navy-s-costly-sub-dream-needs-a-lot-of-
explaining-30152520.html (Accessed on 21 January 2015).
the Prime Minister but usually having a high ranking RTA officer as its
secretary-general44—in consultation with the Foreign Affairs Ministry
and the Department of Defence. The NSC was set up in 1959, and prior
to that, such policies were part and parcel of the work of the Defence
of the Realm Council.45 The real decision-making power in this regard,
however, resides in: the RTN Commander-in-Chief (at the first level);
Supreme Command Headquarters led by the Supreme Commander (at
the second level); the Ministry of Defence led by the Minister of Defence
(at the third level); the Prime Minister and Cabinet (at the fourth level)46;
and finally, Parliament (at the fifth level).47 This is because the RTN can
only effectively implement maritime security policies to the extent that
its naval hardware, installations and budget permit (which are generally
procurement and fiscal decisions taken at these forums rather than at the
NSC per se).
Thailand’s More Recent Maritime Security

Accomplishments
Not content with merely acting in a constabulary role within its own
waters, Thailand also actively engages with a number of other countries
via various multilateral institutional platforms. Though not an exhaustive
list, significant achievements would include, for example:
• Becoming a founding member state of the only Asian regional anti-

piracy treaty i.e. ReCAAP, in 2004;
• Being appointed to the much sought-after Chairmanship of the
ReCAAP Governing Council from 2009 to 2011 and 2013 to 2014;
44
Chambers, U-Turn, p. 60. The current Secretary-General of the National Security
Council of Thailand is Lieutenant General Paradorn Pattanatabut.
45
Thak Chaloemtiarana, Thailand: The Politics of Despotic Paternalism, Ithaca, Cornell
Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2007, p. 185.
46
Panitan Wattanayagorn, ‘Thailand’, in Ravinder Pal Singh, ed., Arms Procurement
Decision Making Volume I: China, India, Israel, Japan, South Korea and Thailand, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 213.
47
It should be noted that while parliament has approval oversight of military budgets
(including naval maritime security procurements and operational expenses), Wattanayagorn
notes how the military’s (in particular the army’s) dominance in Thai domestic politics has
generally led civilian parliamentarians, with some exceptions, to adopt a cautious approach
when exercising this power: ibid., pp. 213, 220–223.
• Officially joining Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore in their coordi-

nated patrols of the Malacca and Singapore straits under the auspices
of the Malacca Strait Sea Patrol initiative in September 200848;
• Becoming a member state of the Contact Group on Piracy off the
Coast of Somalia—a forum set up on 14 January 2009 to bring to
fruition the United Nations Security Council’s objective of suppress-
ing piracy in Somali territorial waters (Security Council Resolution
No. 1851 of 2008)49;
• The RTN’s Counter-Piracy Task Unit (CPTU) taking part in a
number of anti-piracy operations in waters off the coast of Somalia
and in the Gulf of Aden under the umbrella of a multinational
naval partnership of 30 nations called the Combined Maritime
Force (CMF).50 The RTN-CPTU successfully participated in the
operations from September 2010 to January 2011 and July 2011 to
November 2011;
• The RTN taking command of the Combined Task Force 151
(counter-piracy) under the CMF from the 29th of March 201251;
as well as
• Being elected a member of the International Maritime Organization’s
(IMO) Executive Council (Category ‘C’ nation) from 2006 to
2007,52 2008 to 2009,53 2010 to 2011,54 2012 to 2013,55 and 2014
to 2015.56
48
The Royal Thai Airforce later supplemented these coordinated naval patrols with joint
aerial reconnaissance flights under the ‘Eyes in the Sky’ initiative in January 2009.
49
For more information on the ‘Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia’, please
access this website: http://www.state.gov/t/pm/rls/fs/2013/219088.htm#.
50
The ‘Combined Maritime Force’ website may be accessed here: http://combinedmari-
timeforces.com/.
51
Herrmann, The Royal Thai Navy, pp. 214–15.
52
Thai Ministry of Transport (Marine Department) website: http://www.md.go.th/
IMO_Thailand/ (Accessed on 15 June 2013).
53
Ibid.
54
National News Bureau of Thailand (NNBT), 20 January. 2010. Retrieved from
http://202.47.224.92/en/news.php?id=255301200060 (Accessed on 21 January 2015).
55
IMO Press Briefings No. 61, 25 November.2011 Retrieved from http://www.imo.org/
MediaCentre/PressBriefings/Pages/61-council.aspx (Accessed on 21 January 2015).
56
IMO Press Briefings No. 53, 29 November. 2013. Retrieved from http://www.imo.
org/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/Pages/53-A28-council.aspx (Accessed on 21 January
2015).
Table 8.2 Piratical attacks (actual and attempts) from 1995 to 1999a
Location Year
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 Total
Thailand 4 16 17 2 5 44
Indonesia 33 57 47 60 115 312
Malaysia 5 5 4 10 18 42
Malacca Strait 2 3 0 1 2 8
Singapore Strait 2 2 5 1 14 24
Cambodia 1 1 1 0 0 3
Myanmar 0 1 2 0 1 4
Vietnam 4 0 4 0 2 10
Total 51 85 80 74 157 447
a
ICC International Maritime Bureau (ICC-IMB), Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships Annual
Report: 1 January–31 December 2004, London: ICC-IMB, 2005, p. 4
But Why Bother?

Given these significant accomplishments, it would not be unreasonable to
assume that Thailand either has a serious problem of piracy in its waters
or suffers from frequent hostile seaborne incursions by neighbouring rival
states. That however could not be farther from the truth. It should be
noted that when the ministerial cabinet officially approved the purchase of
what would be the HTMS Chakri Naruebet in March 1992,57 Thai waters
were ostensibly free of piracy. In fact, Thailand did not even warrant a
single mention in the IMB-PRC’s 1992 Piracy Report.58 Likewise, pirati-
cal attacks did not represent a threat to Thai waters in 1993 and 1994.59
Table 8.2 below however does indicate that in the years just before the
turn of the century, Thailand did experience a rash of attacks, peaking in
1996 and 1997 but then quickly subsiding once more. Although maritime
depredations perpetrated in Thai waters numbered more than any other
country bar Indonesia and including the Malacca Strait, it still amounted
57
Royal Thai Navy website: http://www.navy.mi.th/newwww/document/engactivity/
eact10.htm.
58
International Maritime Bureau-Regional Piracy Centre (IMB-RPC), Piracy Report
1992, Kuala Lumpur: IMB-RPC, 1993.
59
ICC International Maritime Bureau (ICC-IMB), Piracy and Armed Robbery against
Ships Annual Report: 1 January –31 December 2004, London: ICC-IMB, 2005, p. 4.
to only 9.8% of the total number of attacks that had occurred in these sur-
rounding areas (not including the South China Sea).
As Tables 8.3 and 8.4 further depict, piracies inflicted in Thai seas dur-
ing the new millennium were even less of an issue for the RTN.
From 2000 to 2006, Thai waters were less victimised (2.71%) than any
other maritime zone bar Cambodia and Myanmar (see Table 8.3).
This downward trend persisted, and piratical attacks that occurred in
Thai waters from 2007 to 2012 only represented 1.35% of the total num-
ber of maritime depredations that were perpetrated in those areas (see
Table 8.4). What is uncertain however is whether acts of maritime terror-
ism were included in these statistics. The IMB-PRC’s definition of piracy
and ‘armed robbery against ships’ does not preclude politically-motivated
attacks and hence could conceivably encompass such seaborne depreda-
tions.60 Unfortunately though, the IMB-PRC reports do not generally
provide that sort of information, and hence it would be impossible to
determine the extent of such acts using their data. That said, a review of
the relevant literature has not revealed the perpetration of any major mari-
time terrorist acts in Thai waters during the relevant period.
Furthermore, there were no reports of any major naval battles occur-
ring between the RTN and any of the adjacent states from 1992 to 2012.61
Even disputed maritime boundaries between Cambodia, Myanmar and
Vietnam, respectively, are not considered to be particularly threatening
given that these countries do not “have adequate naval capabilities to
threaten the national (maritime) interest of the Kingdom of Thailand.”62
It would therefore appear that Thailand’s maritime security policies and
naval procurements are significantly disproportionate to the level of threat
it actually faces.
This is not to say however that Thailand does not have any important
maritime interests and assets. It certainly does.63 In fact, with Thailand’s
recent ratification and accession to the 1982 United Nations Convention
60
It should be noted that the definition of ‘piracy’ used by the IMB-PRC since 1992 has
gone through some changes. However, for the purposes of this article, the understanding of
the term ‘piracy’ is more akin to the vernacular understanding of maritime depredations that
include robbery, rape and serious assault committed at sea.
61
Note however that in May 1995, Vietnamese and Thai patrol boats exchanged fire:
62
63
Richard A. Bitzinger, ‘A New Arms Race?: Explaining Recent Southeast Asian Military
Acquisitions’, Contemporary Southeast Asia (CSA), 32, 1 (2010), p. 58.
Location Year
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Total
Thailand 8 8 5 2 4 1 1 29
Indonesia 119 91 103 121 94 79 50 657
Malaysia 21 19 14 5 9 3 10 81
Malacca Strait 75 17 16 28 38 12 11 197
Singapore Strait 5 7 5 2 8 7 5 39
Cambodia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Myanmar 5 3 0 0 1 0 0 9
Vietnam 6 8 12 15 4 10 3 58
Total 239 153 155 173 158 112 80 1070
a
ICC-IMB, 2004, p. 4; ICC International Maritime Bureau (ICC-IMB), Piracy and Armed Robbery
against Ships Annual Report: 1 January –31 December 2006, London: ICC-IMB, 2007, p. 5
Location Year
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Total
Thailand 2 0 2 2 0 0 6
Indonesia 43 28 15 40 46 81 253
Malaysia 9 10 16 18 16 12 81
Malacca Strait 7 2 2 2 1 2 16
Singapore Strait 3 6 9 3 11 6 38
Cambodia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Myanmar 0 1 1 0 1 0 3
Vietnam 5 11 9 12 8 4 49
Total 69 58 54 77 83 105 446
a
ICC International Maritime Bureau (ICC-IMB), Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships Annual
Report: 1 January –31 December 2008, London: ICC-IMB, 2009, p. 5; ICC International Maritime
Bureau (ICC-IMB), Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships Annual Report: 1 January –31 December
2013, London: ICC-IMB, 2014, p. 5
on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 2011,64 the country’s offshore

resources (for example: natural gas and oil reserves; fixed and floating
platforms; fish stocks; Thai fishing fleets; coastal and maritime tourism
features, etc.) within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in both the Gulf
64
Thailand Ministry of Foreign Affairs Press Release, no date. Retrieved from http://
www.thaiembassy.sg/press_media/news-highlights/thailand-becomes-state-party-to-the-
united-nations-convention-on-the-law (Accessed on 8 November 2014).
of Thailand as well as the Andaman Sea, have increased dramatically—all

of which require physical protection.65 As Rear Admiral Suriya Pornsuriya
points out:
[m]aritime terrorism is generally considered a major threat to Thailand’s

maritime security. More than 200 platforms for natural gas and crude
petroleum exploitation are spread in the Gulf of Thailand as vulnerable
targets. Major ports along the coast, namely, Bangkok, Laem Chabang,
Sattahip, Songkhla and Phuket as well as the eastern seaboard industrial
zone in Rayong province are also among those prone to potential attacks.
Thailand’s water area is among the most abounded by fishing boats and
trawlers. Identifying those boats used by terrorists requires huge efforts and
resources. What we fear most is the infiltration and proliferation of WMDs….
Maritime terrorism, conflict over the use of maritime resources, and illegal
activities at sea are the frontline security challenges. Among them, maritime
terrorism is a direct threat to maritime security and the safety of the sea lines
of communication.66
Notwithstanding Admiral Pornsuriya’s unequivocal assessment, the extent

to which such issues are considered to be critical to Thailand’s national
interest is somewhat ambivalent. While the RTN (and its institutional
allies) clearly has a vested interest in its prioritisation within govern-
ment policy and defence budgetary allocations, that same endorsement
however cannot be said to be forthcoming from other segments of the
public service, the armed forces, and even the public in general. Thitinan
Pongudhirak explains that this is because “Thailand’s overriding threats
are fundamentally internal”,67 although he does concede that policy mak-
ers are becoming more cognizant of new non-traditional threats like
piracy and other maritime problems that inflict harmful effects on Thai
fishing fleets, and the frozen seafood industry.68 According to Herrmann,
this “continental” mindset is so overwhelmingly dominant in the nation’s
consciousness that the
65
Tan, Emergence, pp. 118–19; Goldrick and McCaffrie, p. 162.
66
Pornsuriya, p. 90.
67
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, ‘Thailand’s Security Outlook: External Trends and Internal
Crises’, in Eiichi Katahara, ed., Asia Pacific Countries’ Security Outlook and its Implications
for the Defense Sector, Tokyo: The National Institute for Defense Studies, 2010, p. 85.
68
Ibid., p. 92.
Thai people seldom think in a maritime context and consequently the

national strategy of the Kingdom of Thailand is not an inherently mari-
time strategy but is instead continental in its essence. Even the introduc-
tion of the United Nations Convention of Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in
1982,69 the increased dependence on sea-borne trade, the rapid depletion of
resources on land due to population growth and industrialization, and the
discovery of natural gas at sea, and the increased incomes from fishing and
tourism industries could not motivate the majority of Thai to take maritime
affairs more seriously.70
Herrmann notes that because of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, the
HTMS Chakri Naruebet was purchased on the basis of being “fitted for”
and not “equipped with” a lot of key machinery.71 Furthermore, even
when Thailand’s financial situation improved, Andrew Tan points out
that this proverbial “white elephant”72 spent most of her time in port
rather than out at sea because of scarce spare parts and costly operational
expenses.73 Even the RTN’s most treasured objective of reacquiring sub-
marines, since the decommissioning of four of its vessels in 1951, has been
knocked back time and time again by successive governments (both liberal
and integral nationalist).74 There are many credible reasons why the RTN
needs them to augment its surface warfare capabilities: for example, to
acquire an underwater tactical advantage; as an additional weapon to be
used should the country’s maritime border disagreements with Myanmar
and Cambodia escalate into outright military conflicts; and to better
patrol Thailand’s EEZ and territorial waters which make up three fifths
of the country’s total geographical area. Despite these reasons, Avudh
Panananda finds it “inexplicable that for six decades, the Navy has failed
69
This treaty was only ratified and acceded to by the Thai Parliament in 2011 despite its
government having signed the same in 1982: Thailand Ministry of Foreign Affairs Press
Release, no date. Retrieved from http://www.thaiembassy.sg/press_media/news-high-
lights/thailand-becomes-state-party-to-the-united-nations-convention-on-the-law
(Accessed on 8 November 2014).
70
Herrmann, Thailand’s, p. 141.
71
72
Ron Matthews and Alma Lazano, ‘Evaluating Motivations and Performances in ASEAN
Naval Acquisition Strategy’, in Geoffrey Till and Jane Chan, eds, Naval Modernisation in
South-East Asia: Nature, Causes and Consequences, Oxford: Routledge, 2014, p. 70.
73
Tan, Emergence, p. 118.
74
TN, 5 April. 2011.
to rally the public behind its planned procurement of submarines.”75 It is

precisely this “inexplicability” that we will seek to unravel through the use
of a liberal theory of international relations.
Analytical Framework
When attempting to understand the efforts taken by Thailand to improve
upon its maritime security, it is important to articulate here—given the
significant domestic political dissonance highlighted earlier—that such
state action should not be analysed using a realist or even an institutional-
ist approach. We would argue that a liberal theory of international politics
would fit the bill ideally.76 As Oona Hathaway notes:
[t]he liberal approach holds that interstate politics are much more complex
than realists and institutionalists acknowledge. States are not unitary, but
rather are the sum of many different parts. Understanding those parts – the
political institutions, interest groups, and state actors – is essential to fully
understanding state action on the world stage.77
This dynamic way of analysing ostensibly “external” state behaviour

through the uncovering of the “internal” domestic machinations of
political and policy contestation, is an exciting prospect indeed. This, we
believe, will allow for a more accurate understanding of why Thailand’s
maritime security trajectory has taken the path it has. In this regard,
Andrew Moravcsik cogently argues that:
[i]n the liberal conception of domestic politics, the state is not an actor but
a representative institution constantly subject to capture and recapture, con-
struction and reconstruction by coalitions of social actors.78
As the ensuing analysis will show, this action-reaction process of “cap-

ture and recapture, construction and reconstruction” by the RTN and
75
Ibid.
76
Moravcsik, p. 516.
77
Oona A. Hathaway, ‘Do Human Rights Treaties Make a Difference?’, Yale Law Journal
(YLJ), 111 (2002), p. 1952; see also Kenneth Abbott, ‘International Relations Theory,
International Law, and the Regime Governing Atrocities in Internal Conflicts’, American
Journal of International Law (AJIL), 93 (1999), p. 366.
78
Moravcsik, p. 516.
RTA is exactly why inconsistencies and ambiguities are acutely prevalent

in Thailand’s maritime security policies and procurements. This is because
[g]overnment policy is … constrained by the underlying identities, interests,

and power of individuals and groups (inside and outside the state apparatus)
who constantly pressure the central decision makers [in this context being
the Thai Supreme Commander, the Minister of Defence, the Prime Minister,
and the Cabinet] to pursue policies consistent with their preferences.79
Moravcsik explains however that this theoretical paradigm does not
adopt a narrowly pluralist view of domestic politics in which all individuals

and groups have equal influence on state policy, nor one in which the struc-
ture of state institutions is irrelevant. No government rests on universal or
unbiased political representation; every government represents some indi-
viduals and groups more fully than others …. Between theoretical extremes
of tyranny and democracy, many representative institutions and practices
exist, each of which privileges particular demands; hence the nature of state
institutions, alongside societal interests themselves, is a key determinant of
what states do internationally.80
Liberal scholars study the activities and interests of relevant individuals

and groups within municipal society. This method has been described as
a “bottom-up view rather than a top-down view”81 of politics because
“the demands of individuals and societal groups are treated as analyti-
cally prior to politics.”82 Their activities represent the building blocks to
better appreciating why states behave the way they do and consequently
the conflicting and/or converging interests of these individuals and
societal groups are considered to be the cornerstone of liberal theory.83
Anne-Marie Slaughter further observes that political liberalism essentially
re-conceptualises the idea of the state as being a multi-hubbed entity of polit-
ical authority comprising of sub-governmental legislative, administrative,
79
Ibid.
80
Ibid.
81
Anne-Marie Slaughter, ‘International Law and International Relations Theory: A
Prospectus’, in Eyal Benvenisti and Moshe Hirsch, eds, The Impact of International Law on
International Cooperation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 30.
82
Moravcsik, p. 517.
83
Ibid.
executive and judicial arms that function both as regulator and representa-
tive of particular societal interests.84
Thus, a liberal examination of Thailand’s maritime security policy for-
mulation as well as of its implementation will require a consideration of
factors that go far beyond the manoeuvrings of its head of state or depart-
ment of foreign affairs.85 Even governmental, budgetary, geopolitical
and internal security factors only provide us with fragments of the overall
mural. Although seemingly complex and daunting, the approach taken by
Slaughter is actually quite straightforward and the last section of this chap-
ter will attempt to flesh out the key domestic contestations that we believe
have significantly influenced the shape and form of Thailand’s maritime
security policies from 1932 to 2012.
Internecine Rivalry and Its Impact on Thailand’s

Maritime Security Policies
The RTA’s dominance in Thai politics cannot be understated. Suchit
Bunbongkarn expansively opines that “[t]hroughout the modern period
of Thai politics, the Armed Forces, particularly the Army has been a for-
midable political force whose support for the government is essential to
the latter’s survival and stability.”86 As the ostensible guardian of the Thai
“nation and its ‘democratic’ values”,87 the RTA, although not a democrat-
ically elected institution, actively takes upon itself to define the parameters
of these political norms as well as how best to uphold or protect them.
This responsibility, as evidenced by the numerous military-backed
coups that have occurred in Thailand since the replacement of its abso-
lute monarchy with a democratic system in 1932,88 is one that is taken
84
Anne-Marie Slaughter, ‘International Law in a World of Liberal States’, European
Journal of International Law (EJIL), 6 (1995), p. 534; Anne-Marie Slaughter, International
Law and International Relations Theory, p. 30.
85
David Schleicher, ‘Liberal International Law Theory and the United Nations Mission in
Kosovo: Ideas and Practice’, Tulane Journal of International and Comparative Law (TJICL),
14 (2005), p. 200.
86
Suchit Bunbongkarn, The Military in Thai Politics 1981–86, Singapore: ISEAS, 1987,
p. 10.
87
Pavin Chachavalpongpun, ‘The Political Resurgence of the Military’, in Marcus Metzner,
ed., Southeast Asia: Conflict and Leadership, Oxford: Routledge, 2011, p. 47.
88
Ibid., p. 45. The most recent coup d’état took place on the 22nd of May 2014, led by
General Prayuth Chan-ocha, against a caretaker government.
extremely seriously by the RTA’s top leadership. According to Pavin

Chachavalpongpun, the reason behind the RTA’s heavy involvement in
domestic governance lies in the way its political identity was forged in the
early part of the twentieth century.89 Without a colonial power to oust,
the RTA was not able to “enjoy the same support from the people as
armies in countries where the armed forces were able to rally public sup-
port in their fight for independence.”90 Furthermore, the RTA’s standing
in society was severely discredited91 when under the prime ministership
of then-Colonel Plaek Pibulsongkhram, Thailand signed bilateral military
and economic treaties with the Japanese Empire on 8 December 1941,92
thereby allying the country with the defeated Axis Powers of World War
II.93 Consequently, in order to address these troubling issues, “the Thai
army tried to play a particularly strong role in nation-building and the
institutional development of the state.”94 However, given its milita-
ristic mind set, the RTA was quick to frame its apparent guardianship
role in quite belligerent and combative terms. As such, given that there
were no land-based wars to be fought against “external enemies” like the
colonial French or British, alternative “internal” adversaries had to be
unearthed and summarily subdued for the good of the country (as well
as the army’s reputation).95 Chachavalpongpun criticises this process as
being “a rather arbitrary and superficial exercise, with the military pick-
ing its enemies according to the constantly changing concept of national
building….”96 At various points in time, these “internal enemies” would
include: “Thai communists, together with their comrades in Indochina”;
drug traffickers; Muslim insurgents in the deep south; and even civilian
political leaders who might be perceived as a threat to the military like
Thaksin Shinawatra.97 More importantly for this chapter though, Thak
89
Ibid., p. 47.
90
Ibid.
91
Thak Chaloemtiarana, ‘Distinctions with a Difference: The Despotic Paternalism of Sarit
Thanarat and the Demagogic Authoritarianism of Thaksin Shinawatra’, Crossroads: An
Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (CIJSAS), 19, 1 (2007), p. 60.
92
Thai Government Cabinet website: http://www.cabinet.thaigov.go.th/eng/pm_03.
htm.
93
94
Chachavalpongpun, p. 47.
95
Ibid.
96
Ibid.
97
Ibid.
Chaloemtiarana98 and Panitan Wattanayagorn,99 among others, would

likewise add to this list of “foes”, the RTN. Unlike the RTA which was
regularly able to wrest control of central decision-making positions within
the Thai political and military hierarchies, Chambers highlights that thus
far, only three RTN officers (whether serving or retired at the relevant
time) became Supreme Commanders (Admiral Sangad Chaloryu, Admiral
Supha Gajaseni, and Admiral Narong Yuthavong); one RTN officer was
appointed as Defence Minister (Admiral Sangad Chaloryu); and one RTN
officer took over the prime ministerial reins (Admiral Luang [honorific
title] Thawal Thamrongnavaswadhi).100
It is at this juncture that the unravelling of this ‘inexplicability’ really
begins. However, in order to improve the organisation of the unfolding
analysis, this section will be divided into the following time frames:
• First Period: 1932–1949;

• Second Period: 1950–1979;
• Third Period: 1980–1990;
• Fourth Period: 1991–1999; and the
• Fifth Period: 2000–2012
The First Period: 1932–1949

Notwithstanding the RTA’s obvious hegemonic control over Thai politics,
it should not be readily assumed that the RTN was an inconsequential
rival.101 From its very inception, the RTN could claim for itself prestigious
aristocratic roots,102 with its first commander being the much-respected
Admiral Prince Abhakara Kiartiwongse. In fact, before the fateful navy-led
Kabot Manhattan (or the Manhattan Rebellion) of 1951, Chaloemtiarana
describes the RTN as being
on par with the army in troop forces and armaments, for it had an effi-
cient and well-trained marine corps, tanks, airplanes, and modern weapons.
Furthermore, its headquarters were in Bangkok and its ships were moored
98
Chaloemtiarana, Thailand, p. 39.
99
Wattanayagorn, pp. 226–27.
100
Chambers, U-Turn, pp. 7–8, 27, 58.
101
102
Ibid.
in the Chaophraya River, with cannons ready to bombard army strongholds

if needed.103
Moreover, when Thailand’s absolute monarchy was replaced by a consti-

tutional system in 1932, there were as many RTN as there were RTA offi-
cers involved in the revolutionary coup.104 This parity was later mirrored
in the number of military appointments allotted to the navy and army
respectively in the 1932 as well as the 1933 parliaments.105 In truth, this
burgeoning partnership between the army and navy—ostensibly under the
flagship of the Khana Ratsadon (a political party with civilian and military
factions)—proved to be remarkably resilient. With the purge of its civilian
factional leader, Luang Pridi Banomyong as well as his parliamentary allies
for supposedly subversive communist leanings by Thailand’s first civilian
Prime Minister, Phraya Manopakorn Nitithada, the latter was promptly
deposed through a bloodless coup by a coalition of army and navy offi-
cers i.e. Major Luang Pibulsongkhram, naval Commander Luang Bung
Suphachalasai, and Colonel Phraya Phahon Phonpayuhasena on 20 June
1933.106 The latter then took for himself the prime ministership as well as
the position of Commander-in-Chief of the army, and ushered in what we
would describe as a ‘golden age’ of an army-navy political alliance.
During this “golden” period from 1934 to 1938/early 1939, the RTN
was allowed to purchase a range of coastal defence vessels, torpedo boats,
sloops, minelayers and submarines from the Italians and Japanese.107 Even
cruisers and a naval air arm were earmarked for the navy by RTA-led gov-
ernment cabinets.108 The navy was also permitted in 1937 to construct a
new naval base at Sattahip, a strategic location south-east of Bangkok on
the Gulf of Thailand.109 With such resounding support from the RTA,
the RTN was left relatively free to formulate a maritime security strategy
103
Ibid.
104
105
Ibid.
106
Federico Ferrara, ‘The Legend of King Prajadhipok: Tall Tales and Stubborn Facts on
the Seventh Reign in Siam’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (JSAS), 43, 1 (2012), p. 19.
Please note that based on official Thai records, Luang Pipubsongkram’s rank on 20 June
1933 was that of Major and not Colonel as reflected in Ferrara’s article above: see Thai
Government Cabinet website: http://www.cabinet.thaigov.go.th/eng/pm_03.htm.
107
108
Ibid.
109
Ibid.
that would encompass the protection of the entire eastern seaboard of

the nation, although admittedly, it was not exempt from shortfalls of
trained manpower and operational funds to implement this policy.110
Consequently, a more manageable brown-water coastal defensive ‘sea
denial’ maritime security approach was adopted by the navy, i.e. a strategy
of preventing “foreign naval forces from entering the Chao Phraya River
and threatening the capital, Bangkok.”111
According to Heginbotham, however, this military coalition began to
unravel in 1938 when parliament elevated then-Colonel Pibulsongkram to
the prime ministership in place of Colonel Phahon.112 In opposition to his
“largely authoritarian” political methods, and alliance with the Japanese
Empire during World War II, Luang Pridi swiftly galvanised underground
resistance against Field Marshal Pibulsongkram’s administration through
Seri Thai (the “Free Thai Movement”) with the RTN forming a core ele-
ment of this organisation’s armed forces.113 In this regard, Chaloemtiarana
posits, among other reasons, that “perhaps mainly because of its rivalry
[with the RTA], the navy supported Pridi as a way of preventing total
army domination.”114 Notwithstanding the fact that the RTN had pre-
viously enjoyed considerable support from RTA-led cabinets, the key
decision-making body of government, the writing was clearly on the wall.
By way of illustration, General Phahon’s last cabinet (as announced on
21 December 1937) had five ministerial positions held by RTA officers,
four by RTN officers,115 one by an air force officer, one by a senior police
officer, and seven by civilians.116 In contrast, Colonel Pibulsongkram’s first
cabinet as prime minister (as announced on 20 December 1938) had eight
ministerial positions held by RTA officers, four by RTN officers, two by
air force officers, one by a senior police officer, and ten by civilians.117 By
110
Ibid.
111
112
Heginbotham, pp. 104–5.
113
Ibid., p. 105.
114
115
This total number of navy appointees assumes that Captain Phraya Wicharnchakrakij
was a naval officer because unless there were exceptional circumstances, it would be unlikely
that an army captain (which is a very junior commissioned officer rank) would be appointed
to cabinet.
116
Thai Government Cabinet website: http://www.cabinet.thaigov.go.th/eng/cab_08.
htm.
117
htm.
10 March 1942, his cabinet encompassed ten ministerial positions held

by RTA officers, three by RTN officers, three by air force officers, one
by a senior police officer, and seven by civilians.118 Slowly but surely, the
RTN began to find its influence over cabinet decisions waning—its voice
drowned out as navy representation diminished within this executive body.
In tandem with its weakening political hold over cabinet as compared
to the RTA, the RTN was also faring poorly in the Franco-Thai conflict
(1940–1941), losing two torpedo boats, as well as suffering damage to its
coastal defence ship, the Sri Ayuthia, and the eventual capsizing of her sis-
ter ship, the Dhonburi.119 Its maritime security strategy of “sea denial” or
“entrance denial” had failed miserably.120 Furthermore, the sloop, Tachin,
and other naval units were likewise significantly damaged but this time
by Allied forces, as Thailand had joined the side of the Axis Powers dur-
ing World War II.121 Unsurprisingly, James Goldrick and Jack McCaffrie
conclude that by late 1945, the future prospects of the RTN appeared
to be bleak indeed.122 They even discover that because “[t]he national
credit of the Navy was [so] low; some political factions openly lamented
the fact that Allied forces had not destroyed the entire fleet [so as] to save
[Thailand] the cost of its [continued] upkeep.”123
All was not lost though, and with the ousting of Field Marshal
Pibulsongkram by parliament in 1944, Major Kuang Abhayavongsa took
over the reins of government.124 Notwithstanding the military rank, he
was not a career army officer but rather a public service engineer who
had gained a commission as a result of his service in the Royal Guard
during the Indochinese War of 1941.125 Consequently, under his lead-
ership, the RTA’s dominance over cabinet was immediately overturned,
and as announced on 2 August 1944, five ministerial positions went to
the army, six to the RTN, none to the air force and police, and 11 to
118
htm.
119
120
121
122
Ibid.
123
Ibid.
124
htm.
125
Ibid.
civilians.126 Perhaps more importantly, the RTN had secured for itself the
ministries of defence and the interior. After their victory over Field Marshal
Pibulsongkram, Luang Pridi and his liberal democratic allies swiftly
appointed naval officers to key cabinet positions and strengthened the

navy’s capabilities. Between 1944 and 1946, they increased naval budgets
by 50 percent, while reducing the army’s budget by 40 percent. Pridi fun-
nelled many of the best weapons given to the Free Thai movement during
World War II by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services to the navy. By 1947,
Thailand’s naval marine infantry units were equipped with tanks and were
generally better equipped than most Thai army units.127
The RTN was also independently developing strong sub-governmental

networks with its military counterparts in Britain and the USA. That
said, its efforts to acquire significant hardware from them was, to a cer-
tain degree, hampered by Thailand’s status of technically being a van-
quished Axis ally. Through the underground resistance activities of Seri
Thai against its own wartime government, and in particular, the individual
efforts of Mom Rajawongse Seni Pramoja, the Thai ambassador who had
resolutely refused to deliver Field Marshal Pibulsongkram’s declaration of
war to the USA, a great deal of Allied goodwill had nevertheless accrued
in favour of the country’s subsequent civilian-led cabinets, as well as to
its navy.128 That goodwill however did not extend sufficiently enough to
allow for the provision of any requested submarines, although an Algerian
class minesweeper and two ex-Indian Navy Flower class corvettes from the
British, as well as an assortment of landing craft, coastal minesweepers and
submarine chasers from the Americans, were transferred to the RTN from
March 1947 onwards.129
Yet even though the RTN had the upper hand over the RTA, its mari-
time security ambitions still had to be significantly moderated because its
ability to project force across the seas was unfortunately constrained by the
technical limitations of its own vessels. We would therefore argue that far
126
htm.
127
128
Goldrick and McCaffrie, p. 156; Frank C. Darling, ‘British and American Influence in
Post-War Thailand’, Journal of Southeast Asian History (JSAH), 4, 1 (1963), p. 104.
129
Goldrick and McCaffrie, pp. 156–57.
from being a deliberate policy decision, the RTN, by default, had to con-
fine itself primarily to brown-water coastal and riverine defensive duties.
This however was fast becoming a moot point as the RTA had begun
to regain its strength. By way of a coup d’état on 8 November 1947,
Field Marshal Pin Junhavan and Colonel Kaj Kajsongkram were able to
overthrow the government of the first RTN prime minister, Rear Admiral
Luang Thawal Thamrongnavaswadhi.130 Once again, the RTN found
itself floating in “stormy waters”, although it did find some support in
Major Kuang Abhayavongsa’s Democrat Party when three RTN officers
were appointed as ministers in both of his cabinets.131 Try as they might
though, the RTN and its marine corps could not prevent the RTA from
overthrowing his government as well in April 1948.132 To the RTN’s utter
dismay, Field Marshal Pibulsongkram finally recaptured the political man-
tle the navy had helped to wrest away from him in 1944. With him at the
helm, the RTN’s maritime security policies would inevitably have to align
themselves to support RTA objectives, in this case being “riverine and
inshore forces to assist the Army” in its bid to reclaim and/or protect its
borders in Indochina.133
As a result, the RTN and its marines, in collaboration with Luang Pridi
and Seri Thai, launched a countercoup against the military-led govern-
ment in February 1949.134 Sadly for them though, the RTA “crushed the
revolt”135 and quickly took this opportunity to also eliminate senior mem-
bers of Seri Thai. Chaloemtiarana tragically describes how
[o]n March 3, 1949, four former ministers were murdered. These men,
Thawin Udon (a Seri Thai leader from Roi Et), Thongplaew Cholaphum
(Pridi’s secretary), Chamlong Dowruang (a Seri Thai leader from
Mahasarakham), and Thongin Phuriphat (a Seri Thai leader from Ubon),
were killed while being transferred from one prison to another under police
escort. The affair was covered up by Phao’s [Siyanon] police force as being
the work of Seri Thai fighters trying to liberate the prisoners.136
130
htm.
131
htm; http://www.cabinet.thaigov.go.th/eng/cab_20.htm.
132
133
Ibid.
134
Heginbotham, pp. 105–106.
135
Ibid., p. 106.
136
Interestingly enough, a large celebration was subsequently organised by

the RTA to signify solidarity between all the armed services, and while
certain navy officers were purged (for example Rear Admiral Thahan
Khamhiran and Vice Admiral Luang Sangwon Suwannachip),137 by and
large, the ramifications to the RTN were limited.138 Perhaps as a further
show of rapprochement, Field Marshal Pibulsongkram allowed the navy to
regenerate its naval air wing by providing it with a number of Firefly FRI
reconnaissance fighters, trainer aircraft and Helldiver bombers.139 There
was also some hope offered that when Thailand could afford it, new sub-
marines would be added to its fleet.140
The Second Period: 1950–1979

This prospect of naval green-water expansion was nevertheless insufficient
to quell the discontent felt by many within the RTN. Chaloemtiarana
explains that this failed countercoup had
brought to the surface the intense rivalry between the army and the navy….
As the senior navy officers had been eliminated after the Palace Coup [of
February 1949], naval leadership fell to radical young officers who wanted
to regain the navy’s pride.141
This zeal would ultimately culminate in the ill-fated Kabot Manhattan of

1951. This coup, led by Captain Anon Puntharikapha, sought to kidnap
Field Marshal Pibulsongkram so as to use him as leverage in its fight against
the RTA, assuming, wrongly as it turned out, that the government and army
would rather surrender than risk the life of their prime minister.142 The first
part of the plan was executed well, and Lieutenant Commander Manat
Charupha and others were able to spirit Field Marshal Pibulsongkram
off a dredge named the Manhattan to the RTN’s flagship, the Si Ayuthia
on 29 June 1951.143 That however was the extent of their success, and
without additional military support from their commander- in-
chief,
137
Ibid.
138
139
Ibid.
140
Ibid.
141
142
Chaloemtiarana, Thailand, pp. 40–41.
143
Ibid.
Admiral Luang Sindhu Songkhramchai, the coup was doomed to fail.144

Launching an all-out assault on the rebels even though they knew Field
Marshal Pibulsongkram was on board the Si Ayutthaya, the army, air
force and police completely destroyed the RTN’s flagship, as well as
other naval installations.145 The prime minister was extremely lucky to
make it out alive.146 The RTN, however, was not as fortunate. As pun-
ishment for the coup, and to ensure that the RTN would not be able to
do this again, the navy was stripped to “its barest bones.”147 This was
implemented by:
• Purging all “disloyal” RTN officers from the navy148;

• Disarming many of the RTN’s ships’ weapons149;
• Transferring all of the provinces (i.e. Chanthaburi, Chonburi,
Rayong, Samutprakan, Samutsakhon, Samutsongkhram, and Trat)
under the navy’s territorial jurisdiction to the army150;
• Moving the RTN’s headquarters away from the capital, Bangkok, to
Samutprakan151;
• Moving the RTN’s battleship department away from the country’s
most important waterway, the Chaophraya River, to Sattahip152;
• Transferring the navy air wing to the Royal Thai Air Force153;
• Reassigning the navy’s famous military band to the armed forces
headquarters154;
• Reducing the number of Royal Thai Marine Corps personnel155;
• Only allowing the RTN to retain a “skeleton” crew, and reassigning
“surplus” navy personnel to the army, air force and police156;
• Suspending naval recruitment exercises157;
144
145
Ibid.
146
Ibid.
147
Ibid.
148
149
Ibid.
150
151
Ibid.
152
Ibid.
153
Ibid.
154
Ibid.
155
Ibid.
156
Ibid.
157
• Reassigning submarines to the “unmaintained reserve”158 (these ves-

sels were subsequently decommissioned later in the year, ostensibly
because of a lack of spare parts but was probably intended to be an
additional “punishment” imposed on the navy by the RTA)159;
• Reallocating various naval installations/buildings to the other arms
of the military160; and
• Imposing strict funding restrictions on the navy’s budget (for exam-
ple, on salaries, operational costs, and naval procurements etc.)161
Devastatingly punitive measures were exacted against the RTN, and as a

result, the navy was “reduced to impotency.”162 The RTA would no longer
commit any funding or resources to the RTN for it to pursue a proactive
maritime security policy that would entail green-water force projection.
It would instead limit the navy to “coastal defence, minesweeping and
anti-submarine warfare.”163 Nonetheless, it was during those dark days
that the RTN’s resilience shone through. Such setbacks did not break its
independent spirit, and although clearly floundering, the RTN continued
to resist the RTA through its close collaboration with “parliamentary civil-
ian opponents to military rule”,164 as well as by actively cultivating sub-
governmental linkages with its naval counterparts in foreign countries.165
Goldrick and McCaffrie explain that being ostracised by the RTA had
actually “strengthened the Navy’s links with the Americans and reinforced
RTN enthusiasm for the Western alliance, not least so that the RTN could
find credible roles and access cheap equipment.”166
The first of these significant Western alliances however was ostensibly
designed to contain the continental or inland communist threat. This was
emanating from the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China
through their proxies in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, making Thailand a
‘frontline’ nation in the war against communism.167 That said, Thailand’s
158
Ibid.
159
TN, 5 April. 2011.
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
Ibid.
167
Ibid.
signing of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty in September 1954

which created the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), resulted
in unexpected bounties for the RTN. This was because even though
Thailand’s principal aim in acceding to SEATO was to guarantee its territo-

rial integrity, but the maritime nature of the alliance and of the South-East
Asian geography dictated some naval focus, spurred by the increasing west-
ern fears of a growing Soviet submarine fleet and a resurgent Communist
Chinese Navy. Thus, the RTN was able to make up for some of the losses
of 1951.168
The commencement of the Vietnam War in the second half of the 1950s
made it even more apparent that the RTN had to be rehabilitated and re-
armed as soon as possible. Thus, there was no opposition from the RTA
to re-activate the Royal Thai Marine Corps in 1954/1955 because they
were sorely needed by the army to support it with riverine and amphibious
patrols in the Gulf of Thailand.169 Likewise, the RTN was given permis-
sion to resurrect its naval air wing through a donation from the USA in
1967/1968 of ten S-2 Tracker Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) aircraft
for maritime surface surveillance purposes.170 The RTN was also allocated
with funds by the RTA-led government to regularly participate in naval
exercises with SEATO as well as with the US Navy.171 In addition to this,
the USA provided the RTN with a range of patrol and landing craft, river
gunboats, a destroyer escort warship (the Pin Klao in 1959), as well as
coastal minesweepers (from 1962 to 1965).172
There was still no domestic support or funds for the RTN to adopt
a more expansive maritime security role in the region—one that would
involve the ongoing maintenance of a fully seagoing war fleet.173 At best,
its traditional brown-water defensive ‘sea denial’ maritime security strategy
was now enhanced to include an offensive coastal interdiction element so
as to suppress communist infiltration.174 With the impending withdrawal
of the USA from Indochina, and in particular, its’ Seventh Fleet from the
168
Ibid.
169
170
Ibid., p. 160.
171
Ibid.
172
Ibid.
173
Ibid.
174
Gulf of Thailand, the RTN definitely saw in this an opportunity to increase

the scope of its maritime security responsibilities in order to fill the loom-
ing vacuum.175
The North Vietnamese navy, which was being armed by the Soviets,
suddenly also presented a “real external threat” to the national interests
of the country,176 and so through a combination of foreign and domestic
funds as well as loans, older RTN frigates were refitted, and even a new
frigate was ordered from the British in August 1969.177 In addition to
that, three Fast Attack Craft Missile boats were purchased from Singapore
in 1973, and a further three missile crafts were ordered from Italy after
April 1975.178 As Goldrick and McCaffrie argue, the need for the RTN
to develop a credible surface warfare capability to address such military
threats “became more obvious through the 1970s.”179
The fall of Saigon in 1975 likewise raised the spectre of a range of non-
traditional security problems occurring in the Gulf of Thailand as a result
of the considerable outflow of refugees by sea.180 Such vulnerable “boat
people” would naturally attract pirates into these waters, and not only
would they be victimised, other innocent Thai fishing vessels in the area
would inevitably be attacked too.181 In such circumstances, the “policing
[of] these waters rapidly became a primary task of the Navy.”182
The issue of protecting Thai fishing vessels was also a growing concern
along the western coast of the country as Burmese/Myanmese authori-
ties were regularly apprehending and punishing Thai fishermen who had
apparently strayed into their waters.183 Consequently, in January 1977,
the RTN announced that it would, for the first time, be deploying gun-
boats to the area so as to “protect Thai fishing trawlers and oil exploration
operators.”184 In addition to that, the government agreed to build a naval
base in Phang Nga Province, a strategic location facing the Andaman Sea,
175
176
Ibid., p. 162.
177
Ibid., p. 161.
178
Ibid., p. 162.
179
Ibid., p. 161.
180
Ibid.
181
Ibid.
182
Ibid.
183
Albert D. Moscotti, ‘Current Burmese and Southeast Asian Relations’, Southeast Asian
Affairs (SAA), (1978), p. 89.
184
Ibid.
as this would allow its navy to more effectively “patrol Thailand’s dis-
puted maritime boundaries with Burma and the entrance to the Malacca
Straits.”185 This decision would prove to be a fortunate one because later
in the year, Myanmar enacted the Territorial Sea and Maritime Zone Law
which laid claim to fishing rights up “to a distance of 200 miles from its
coastline”, thus encroaching on Thailand’s own waters.186
Interestingly, Goldrick and McCaffrie contend that:
[t]o some extent, the Navy was enjoying the ‘benefits’ of an improved
domestic political position…. In 1977, when another military coup was
in train, its leaders (including the next Prime Minister, General Kriangsak
Chomanan) sought to broaden their power base by allowing services other
than the Army to share in senior positions. This helped the RTN to attempt
to extend its horizons and matched the new government’s intentions to
modernize the armed forces and improve military ‘self reliance’….Any
coherent defence policy for Thailand needed a maritime element, which
greatly strengthened the Navy’s position, at least in principle.187
In contrast however, Heginbotham, views these same events quite differ-

ently, and instead argues that:
“[e]xcept during the democratic interlude between 1973 and 1976,

naval fortunes languished between the 1957 coup [when Field Marshal
Pibulsongkram was ousted by Field Marshal Sarit Dhanarajata] and the
gradual restoration of democratic politics after 1980. The size of the fleet
declined, and the average age of the ships rose.188
A close scrutiny of the official records reveal that the RTN was not heavily
represented in most of the government cabinets formed after the 1957
coup d’état, and hence its influence over government, by and large, was
minimal. Take for example, General Kriangsak Chomanan’s first cabinet
(as announced on 12 November 1977)—RTN officers held three minis-
terial/deputy ministerial positions, whereas RTA officers held six of the
same, including the full defence portfolio.189 In his second cabinet (as
185
186
Moscotti, p. 89.
187
188
189
htm.
announced on 24 May 1979), RTN officers only held two deputy ministe-
rial positions; whereas RTA officers held eight ministerial/deputy ministe-
rial positions, including once again, the full defence portfolio.190
As for the period between 1973 and 1976, Thailand had four civil-
ian prime ministers (i.e. Sanya Dharmasakti, Mom Rajawongse Kukrit
Pramoja, Mom Rajawongse Seni, and Tanin Kraivixien) but only two of
them appointed a RTN officer as their Defence Minister.
• In his first cabinet (as announced on 16 October 1973), Prime

Minister Sanya Dharmasakti appointed Air Chief Marshal Dawee
Chulladrabya as his Defence Minister.191 In his second cabinet (as
announced on 27 May 1974), General Kruan Suddhanin was instead
selected as his Defence Minister.192
• Prime Minister Mom Rajawongse Kukrit, (as announced on 17 March
1975), likewise chose for his Defence Minister, a former RTA officer
i.e. Major General Pramarn Adireksarn,193 who then led a political
party which formed a coalition with Mom Rajawongse Kukrit but
who maintained close ties with the army.
• On 25 September 1976, Prime Minister Mom Rajawongse Seni picked
Admiral Sangad Chaloryu as his Defence Minister.194 No other RTN
officer however was appointed to his cabinet at that time.195 In con-
trast, four RTA officers were appointed to this same administration,
of whom one was selected to be Deputy Prime Minister, and the other
three to full ministerial portfolios.196 Conversely, when he appointed
a sole army officer to the position of Defence Minister (as announced
190
htm. In a subsequent cabinet reshuffle on the 11th of February 1980, RTN officers still only
held two deputy ministerial appointments.
191
htm.
192
htm. It should be noted that the official Thai government records do not indicate that
Admiral Sangad Chaloryu was appointed by Prime Minister Sanya to be his Defence Minister,
even though this is cited as such in Heginbotham’s work: Heginbotham, p. 107.
193
htm.
194
htm.
195
Ibid.
196
Ibid.
on 21February 1975), only a single navy officer was likewise selected

to be in his administration (and not even as a full minister).197 What
is most startling is the fact that in one of his cabinets (as announced
on 21 April 1975), Mom Rajawongse Seni, the man who formed Seri
Thai, did not appoint any RTN officers even though five full ministe-
rial places and one deputy prime ministerial position were given to
the RTA.198 Admiral Sangad Chaloryu staged a coup against the Seni
government on 6 October 1976. Apparently, however, the admiral
was only a figurehead of the junta which was otherwise dominated
by the army. This was despite the fact that Seni’s successor, Prime
Minister Tanin Kraivixien, a conservative royalist, judge and aca-
demic, did appoint Admiral Sangad as his Defence Minister.199 Tanin
was also deposed by the military on 20 October 1977.200
Apart from the considerable impact Admiral Sangad had on Thai poli-
tics during that period, it is nonetheless still arguable that the RTN did not
have as strong a voice in cabinet as compared with the RTA from 1957 to
1979. Consequently, even though the fall of Saigon in April 1975
led to a remarkable Thai military build-up….as the victorious communist

neighbors relied heavily on ground forces and land-based systems, the RTN
was (again) not on the priority list of Thai military modernization at that
stage.201
The Prime Minister of the day, Mom Rajawongse Kukrit, had six former
RTA officers in his cabinet who undertook, among others, the portfolios
of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Defence Minister, and the Minister
for Foreign Affairs. The only RTN voice in his cabinet was from Admiral
Kamol Sitakalin, the Deputy Minister of Defence.202
197
htm.
198
htm.
199
htm.
200
htm.
201
202
htm.
Thus, notwithstanding the presence of civilian-led administrations, as

well as real external maritime threats to the security of Thailand,
[d]uring this time – from the aftermath of World War II until the height of
the Cold War – the RTN was described by some experts as a “gunboat navy”
because its main aim was fighting sea-borne (communist) infiltrations, as
well as piracy and armed robbery ships along the sea borders to Cambodia
and inside the Gulf of Thailand.
But with the final withdrawal of American troops and ships from the
region, an emboldened North Vietnam then marched into Cambodia in
1978/1979. The spectre of the ‘domino effect’ suddenly loomed large
for Thailand.203
The Third Period: 1980–1990

Confirming Thailand’s fears, these North Vietnamese troops then con-
ducted armed sorties along its borders in June 1980.204 As a part of the
global Cold War, when the Soviets were fighting against China in Southeast
Asia via the fomer’s proxy, the Vietnamese, Prime Minister General Prem
Tinsulanonda made a direct appeal to the mainland Chinese government
sometime in October/November 1980 for assistance in this regard.205 In
a show of displeasure for involving its communist rival in this matter, the
Soviet Minsk aircraft carrier battle group “sailed” through the Gulf of
Thailand almost unchallenged on 31 October 1980.206 Although that was
probably embarrassing for the RTN, given its limited ability to respond
effectively to such a show of force,207 General Prem nevertheless won the
diplomatic battle because the Soviet’s act of intimidation had inadver-
tently forced China’s hand to publicly and privately constrain Vietnam’s
warmongering activities against Thailand.208 This however would not be
the last time that the Soviets would try to employ such gunboat diplo-
203
Nigel Thalakada, Unipolarity and the Evolution of America’s Cold War Alliances,
Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, p. 132.
204
205
Leszek Buszynski, Soviet Foreign Policy and Southeast Asia, London: Croom Helm,
1986, p. 234.
206
Ibid.; Goldrick and McCaffrie, p. 163.
207
208
Buszynski, Soviet, p. 234.
macy, and when the Chinese Foreign Minister made an official visit to
Bangkok in 1982, the Minsk once again traversed with impunity into the
Gulf of Thailand.209
Maritime boundary issues were also compounded that year when the
United Nations promulgated UNCLOS in 1982.210 This treaty allowed
countries to declare for themselves, among other rights, an EEZ of up
200 nautical miles.211 Goldrick and McCaffrie made note that “[b]oth
Cambodia and Burma declared 200 mile EEZs which were not agreed
to by Thailand and which affected traditional and recent Thai fishing
areas.”212 Other states soon followed suit, and as a result, Thailand is now
an EEZ-locked nation surrounded by two layers of other countries. The

inner layer comprises Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei,
Indonesia, India’s Nicobar Island and Myanmar. The other layer is made up
of China, Philippines, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.213
Given these many vexing issues, the RTN began lobbying the government
to allow it to adopt an integrated ‘defence in depth’ maritime security
framework for the Gulf of Thailand.214 This would entail “deploying for-
ward in order to provide a layered defence” for its eastern seaboard.215
As explained by Admiral Zhang Xusen, a former naval chief of staff at the
People’s Liberation Army: Navy, “defence in depth”
offers space for fleet maneuverability….[C]ompared with the army, the navy
has no rear-line. The 12 nautical mile maritime territorial line is so thin that
it cannot shield the country effectively. Defence in depth is a matter for the
navy’s survival, not to mention its strategic missions. So the [navy] should
extend its defence forward as best it can, disregarding the limit of the ter-
209
James A. Gregor, In the Shadow of Giants: the Major Powers and the Security of Southeast
Asia, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1989, p. 52.
210
211
Ibid.
212
Ibid.
213
Chart Navavichit, (2002). ‘Thailand’s Maritime Strategy in the Twenty First Century’,
in Jurgen Schwarz and Wilfried A. Herrman and Hanns-Frank Seller, eds, Maritime Strategies
in Asia, Bangkok: White Lotus Press, 2002, p. 411.
214
215
Roald Gjelsten, ‘The Role of Naval Forces in Northern Waters at the Beginning of a
New Century’ in Rolf Hobson and Tom Kristiansen, eds, Navies in Northern Waters:
1721–2000, London, Frank Cass, 2004, p. 303, en. 5.
ritorial waters. Only when this is achieved can the defence of the country’s
coastal cities and the navy’s rear-bases be relieved from the enemy’s direct
attack.”216
The RTN’s “sophisticated and ambitious” policy would require
[p]lanning … for a submarine force, expansion of the naval air wing to

include more modern maritime patrol and fighter/strike aircraft, doubling
the number of effective surface combatants and equipping them with more
sophisticated weaponry and the production of indigenous amphibious ships
to replace the elderly US-built units. The RTN’s infrastructure and anti-
quated logistics system were to be modernized, and more money allocated
to improving local ship construction facilities.217
It is important to acknowledge at this juncture that while Prime Minister

General Prem was a career army officer, he nonetheless tried to “reestab-
lish meaningful civilian government and to curb military involvement in
governmental affairs.”218 During his tenure from 3 March 1980 to his
eventual resignation on 28 April 1988,219 his cabinets were characterised
by having between 37 and 44 ministers/deputy ministers, the majority of
whom were civilians.220 That said, RTA officers had overwhelmingly more
positions in his administrations as compared to their RTN counterparts.221
Procurement earmarking for the navy was therefore limited (although it
should be noted that the army budget during this period was reduced as
well).222 As such, between 1982 and 1988,223 the RTN was able to acquire
some but not all of the items on its wish list:
216
You Ji, ‘A Blue Water Navy: “Does it Matter?’, in David S. G. Goodman and Gerald
Segal, eds, China Rising: Nationalism and Interdependence, London: Routledge, 1997,
p. 77.
217
218
Heginbotham, p. 108. Note however, General Prem’s involvement in the military coup
against Prime Minister Thaksin in 2006.
219
htm.
220
htm; http://www.cabinet.thaigov.go.th/eng/cab_43.htm; http://www.cabinet.thaigov.
go.th/eng/cab_44.htm.
221
htm; http://www.cabinet.thaigov.go.th/eng/cab_43.htm; http://www.cabinet.thaigov.
go.th/eng/cab_44.htm.
222
223
Ibid., pp. 164–66.
• Spanish Descubierta class light frigate – abandoned

• South Korean missile craft – abandoned
• 2 US missile corvettes – purchased
• US Harpoon missiles – purchased
• British Light-weight torpedoes – purchased
• 3 Dutch Fokker F27 maritime patrol aircraft – purchased
• 2 West German minehunters – purchased
• 4 additional West German minehunters – abandoned
• 1 landing ship constructed in Thailand – purchased
• A range of patrol craft constructed in – purchased
Thailand
• 2 patrol submarines from overseas – abandoned
• Submarines to be constructed in Thailand – abandoned
• 3 Thai-made Khamrosin class 62m ASW – purchased
corvettes
• 4 Chinese Chao Phraya class frigates – purchased
Of particular note, the RTN’s fervent request for submarines was turned down
again, this time in favour of funding, among other national developmental proj-
ects, F-16 fighter aircraft for the Royal Thai Air force.224 Not all the blame how-
ever can be ascribed to General Prem or even the RTA. The navy itself was divided
over which of its procurements should be prioritised.225 Furthermore, the RTN,
ever mindful of the need to establish strong bilateral and multilateral links with its
foreign counterparts, was extremely active in building rapport in this area. There
was definitely a sense of urgency in the air, particularly because by the early part of
the 1970s, SEATO had already become moribund, and was eventually wound up
on 30 June 1977 by its Thai Secretary-General, Sunthorn Hongladarom.226
Consequently, to buffer itself against future RTA marginalisation, great efforts
were taken to bolster its relationships with not only the US Navy (through the
ongoing Cobra Gold naval exercises since 1982),227 but also with the Tentera Laut
DiRaja Malaysia, the Republic of Singapore Navy, the Tentara Nasional Indonesia
Angkatan Laut, the Hukbóng Dagat ng Pilipinas, and the Royal Australian
224
McCaffrie, p. 30.
225
226
Justus M. van der Kroef, The Lives of SEATO, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies, 1976, p. 1. This was quite fitting given that SEATO’s first Secretary General was
another Thai i.e. Prime Minister Pote Sarasin. Note however, that this treaty may still be
technically binding on some of the signatories: Claire Taylor and Tom Rutherford, Military
Balance in South East Asia, London: House of Commons Library, 2011, p. 14.
227
Chien-pen Chung, ‘Southeast Asia-China Relations: Dialectics of “Hedging” and
“Counter-Hedging”’, Southeast Asian Affairs (SAA), 2004, p. 36.
Navy.228 Sadly, for the most part, the funds needed to conduct these naval exercises
came out of the existing navy budget, and the opportunity cost of doing so then
had to be calculated vis-à-vis paying for new procurements, maintenance of cur-
rent vessels and systems, and staff welfare.229 Additional funding from the cabinet
was not often forthcoming.230
Notwithstanding these difficulties, the RTN continued to press on with
its integrated all-arms “defence in depth” maritime security policy, and
advocated that the protection of the entire eastern seaboard be left exclu-
sively in the hands of the navy, and its marine corps231 (as opposed to
sharing this responsibility with the RTA, the Marine Police and the Royal
Thai Air Force). Surprisingly, this bold proposal was accepted by General
Prem’s cabinet sometime in April 1988.232 The lack of resistance on the
part of the RTA against this scheme could perhaps be attributed to the
following reasons: firstly, the communist insurgency in Thailand had all
but collapsed thus releasing the amphibious marines to find for themselves
alternative roles to play; and secondly, the army’s reputation had recently
taken a beating after it had suffered disappointing outcomes in its bat-
tles against Vietnam in February 1987 and Laos in November 1987 to
February 1988.233 Regrettably, no express approval was given in relation
to its expenditure (for example, to upgrade and reinforce the Royal Thai
Marine Corps with light tanks and mobile artillery etc.).234 This outstand-
ing issue however was left unresolved because General Prem resigned from
government shortly thereafter.235 Undeterred, the RTN submitted to the
new Prime Minister, General Chatichai Choonhavan,236 its budget for
1989—a fiscal estimate that amounted to 20,000 million baht—this being
228
229
Ibid., p. 165.
230
Wongnakornsawang, http://58.97.114.34:8881/academic/index.php/site_
content/656-2013-12-05-13-59-49/2503-the-royal-thai-navy-s-policy-on-anti-piracy-as-
a-part-of-naval-diplomacy.html.
231
232
Ibid.
233
Tim Huxley, ‘The ASEAN States’ Defence Policies: Influences and Outcomes’, in Colin
McInnes and Mark G. Rolls, eds, Post-Cold War Security Issues in the Asia-Pacific Region,
Essex, England: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1994, p. 149.
234
235
htm.
236
Prime Minister, General Chatichai Choonhavan, who, notwithstanding his military
rank, was in reality a career diplomat and businessman: Thai Government Cabinet website:
http://www.cabinet.thaigov.go.th/eng/pm_17.htm.
the navy’s calculation of how much it would cost to comprehensively

defend the country’s entire eastern seaboard.237 The navy further floated
the idea of forming a Coast Guard Squadron to specifically discharge its
constabulary duties within these waters (for example, law enforcement
and the rendering of assistance to those who are in-distress-at-sea).238
Having received sanction, the RTN set up, on a trial basis, a new unit that
was equipped with a frigate, as well as patrol ships and surveillance aircraft
sometime in April 1989.239 This initiative proved to be a success and was
permanently established in 1992.240
Even though General Chatichai’s civilian-dominated cabinets did
not have a single RTN officer, and only one air force chief marshal, Tim
Huxley nonetheless points out that because Thailand was then engaged in
conventional warfare with its neighbours (for example, Vietnam and Laos)
instead of merely combating communist insurgents, the need to upgrade
not just its army but also its air force and navy became imperative.241 Thus
although the army traditionally saw … [the navy and air force] as subsidiary
arms, their support role was clearly much more important in the context
of larger scale, conventional warfare than it had been during the counter-
insurgency era.242
Simply having brown-water naval capacity to conduct coastal defence,

riverine patrols, and counter-insurgency interdictions was no longer suf-
ficient. Instead, the RTN had to envisage for itself a more expansive role
in these changing strategic circumstances—one that involved the forging
of an all-arms integrated “defence in depth” maritime security framework.
This would then allow the RTN to deploy a layered configuration of war-
ships (surface), submarines (underwater), tactical naval aircraft (air), and
amphibious troops that were supported by light tanks and mobile artillery
(land), anywhere in the Gulf of Thailand.
237
Khatharya Um, ‘Thailand and the Dynamics of Economic and Security Complex in
Mainland Southeast Asia’, Contemporary Southeast Asia (CSA), 13, 3 (1991), p. 264.
238
Herrmann, The Royal Thai Navy, p. 218. It should be noted that such a move would of
course, set the RTN on a collision course with the Marine Police (under the Ministry of the
Interior).
239
Goldrick and McCaffrie, p. 167. This squadron was later officially established in 1992:
see Herrmann, The Royal Thai Navy, p. 218.
240
241
Huxley, p. 149.
242
Ibid.
This however was going to be an extremely expensive wish list, and

despite some external funding from the USA, as well as political support
from General Chatichai, the army and air force would traditionally receive
a larger share in any government defence budget.243 Purchasing armaments
from China at “friendly prices” did help considerably as some ships were
purchased at a fraction of the cost.244 That said, Goldrick and McCaffrie
did notice “[s]ome confusion … [becoming] evident in the RTN and its
planning process, the result of continuing factionalism” between various
quarters of the navy who prioritised different institutional needs.245 The
main problem still remained though: there was a lack of political will in
cabinet to provide the RTN with sufficient funds to implement its com-
prehensive maritime security policies. That however would soon change.
The Fourth Period: 1991–1999

Like his predecessors, General Chatichai’s tenure as prime minister was
not without incident. Elements within the RTA were deeply dissatisfied
with his efforts to reduce the army’s influence over government in favour
of civilian rule.246 Paul Chambers points out how “[p]olicies aimed at
downsizing the armed forces began during the Chatchai Choonhavan
administration when Chatchai began balking at certain military weapons
requests….”247 As a response to this threat to its political hegemony,
key generals in the RTA attempted to depose him on numerous occa-
sions. Ostensibly on grounds of corruption, although there were other
reasons as well,248 General Sunthorn Kongsomphong, General Suchinda
243
Wattanayagorn, p. 227; Goldrick and McCaffrie, pp. 162, 165, 172.
244
Goldrick and McCaffrie, p. 166. Goldrick and McCaffrie highlighted that the RTN was
nevertheless acutely aware of the quality control issues that plagued these Chinese-built
vessels.
245
Ibid., p. 167.
246
Duncan McCargo, ‘Thailand’s Democracy: The Long Vacation’, Politics (P), 12, 2
(1992), pp. 3–8.
247
Paul Chambers, Unruly Boots: Military Power and Security Sector Reform Efforts in
Thailand, Frankfurt: Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, 2013, p. 15.
248
Surin Maisrikrod, Thailand’s Two General Elections in 1992: Democracy Sustained,
Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1992, p. vii. Prime Minister General
Chatichai had not only angered the army but had also interfered with the way senior bureau-
crats were running the civil services. There were also rumours that he was about to sack
General Sunthorn Kongsomphong from his position of Supreme Commander: Surin
Maisrikrod, ‘The Making of Thai Democracy: A Study of Political Alliances among the State,
Kraprayoon, Admiral Praphat Krisnachan and Air Chief Marshal Kaset

Rojananil finally took control of the country on 23 February 1991.249
Surin Maisrikrod observes how having usurped a democratically elected
government, the coup leaders, through their National Peacekeeping
Council (NPC), then quickly tried to reassure the public that they
were “not hungry for power.”250 To show its sincerity in this regard,
the NPC installed a highly respected technocrat, Anand Panyarachun,
as prime minister.251 To a certain extent, this did indeed support the
NPC’s claim to altruistic intentions, as Prime Minister Anand “turned
out to be no c reature of the military”,252 securing not only the detained
General Chatichai’s release, but also the lifting of martial law as soon as
it was practicable.253 He was compelled however to make concessions
in other areas, including admitting seven active military officers into his
cabinet.254
From the RTN’s perspective, the elevation of Admiral Prapat to the
full defence portfolio was a particularly advantageous choice, and it was
no wonder that within a year of his appointment, the cabinet voted to
approve the purchase of an aircraft carrier on March 1992,255 a vessel that
would be used for disaster relief as well as military duties. This partnership
between the RTA and RTN, buoyed by having an admiral at the helm of
the Ministry of Defence, encouraged the navy to pursue its agenda more
aggressively in cabinet. This reconciliation did not last long however, and
their renewed relationship would soon be sorely tested.
the Capitalists, and the Middle Class’, in Anek Laothamatas, ed., Democratization in
Southeast and East Asia, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1997, p. 162. This
animosity had been compounded by the Prime Minister’s close association with an outspo-
ken critic of the army, Chalerm Yubamrung, as well as his appointment of General Arthit
Kamlang-ek as Deputy Minister of Defense, a rival of both General Sunthorn and General
Suchinda.
249
Suchit Bunbongkarn, ‘Thailand in 1991: Coping with Military Guardianship’, Asian
Survey (AS), 32, 2 (1991), p. 132.
250
Maisrikrod, Thailand’s Two General Elections, p. 1.
251
Ibid.
252
James P. LoGerfo, ‘Beyond Bangkok: The Provincial Middle Class in the 1992 Protests’,
in Ruther Thomas McVey, ed., Money and Power in Provincial Thailand, Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 2000, p. 228.
253
Bunbongkarn, Thailand in 1991, p. 134.
254
Ibid., pp. 133–134.
255
Royal Thai Navy website: http://www.navy.mi.th/newwww/document/engactivity/
eact10.htm.
Although publicly claiming benign intent, the coup leaders (including

Admiral Prapat) were attempting to consolidate their power through the
drafting of a new constitution that “effectively put the military in firm
control of politics: the military-appointed senate was given overwhelming
power, and a non-elected person was eligible to assume premiership.”256
The NPC’s previous assurances of not being power-hungry proved even
more incredible when
General Suchinda, the then Supreme Commander and Commander-in-

Chief of the Army and a key person in the military junta [i.e. the NPC],
took up the premiership in early April [1992] without having stood in the
election, despite his promise late in 1991 that he would not accept the top
job.257
This then set in motion a tragic chain of events that eventually led to the
military (but not the navy) killing over 50 protesters, and injuring hun-
dreds more when hundreds of thousands of disaffected Thais congregated
in the streets in May 1992 to demand Prime Minister General Suchinda’s
immediate resignation.258 This was a dark period for the RTA, and if not
for a general amnesty given to them before the outgoing prime minis-
ter was forced from office, all of the responsible military officers would
have been criminally prosecuted.259 That said, once the replacement
prime minister, Anand Panyarachun, took over the reins again, he swiftly
demoted all of them, including Air Chief Marshal Kaset Rojananil (the
Thai Supreme Commander), General Issarapong Noonpakdi (Chief of
the Army), General Viroj Aaengsanit (Deputy Chief of the Army), and
General Chainarong Noonpakdi (Commander of the First Army Region),
among others.260
Breaking ranks from its fellow coup conspirators, the RTN balked at
the idea of using deadly force against the protesters, and as a result, Black
May of 1992 became a shining moment for the navy. Heginbotham extolls
how the
256
Maisrikrod, Thailand’s Two General Elections, p. 1.
257
Ibid.
258
Ibid., p. 2.
259
Surin Maisrikrod, ‘Thailand 1992: Repression and Return of Democracy’, Southeast
Asian Affairs (SAA), (1993), p. 335.
260
Ibid., pp. 335–336.
[m]arine units… [had] not only refused orders to suppress the demonstra-
tions but also shielded protesters from the army….Civilian government was
restored, at least in part because marine actions threatened civil war. The
navy came away from the events of May 1992 as the darlings of liberal politi-
cal elites and the press.261
Thereafter, with a newly elected government headed by Chuan Leekpai,

“the navy was showered with contracts for new equipment.”262 In particu-
lar, the RTN was seeking permission to purchase a range of tactical aircraft
and helicopters (for example, the Sikorsky SH60 Seahawk helicopters and
the EAV8A Harrier jump-jets).263 This apparent generosity was not only to
“reward” the navy for its salutary role during the Black May massacre but
could also have been part of Prime Minister Chuan’s latent “divide and
rule” strategy.264 During a National Security Council meeting sometime in
March 1993, the prime minister made it amply clear that the navy and air
force “were to be fully equipped to defend Thailand’s security interests”
notwithstanding the obvious fact that it was not necessary for the navy to
have helicopter carriers or submarines to protect the country’s southern
seaboard and national fishing fleet, or to prevent piracy in those waters.265
Leszek Buszynski suggests however “[t]he sentiment in Thailand … [was]
that the Navy and Air Force should be allowed their equipment for what-
ever reason so that they may act to check the ambitions of the Army.”266
Thus, Thailand’s first Defence White Paper of 1994 made explicit ref-
erence to the need for the navy to have additional “frigates and other
major surface ships, [as well as] two submarines….”267 Consequently, by
the middle of 1994, the Thai cabinet had approved the purchase of two
US Navy Knox class frigates,268 in addition to a 22,000 tonne replenish-
ment ship from China that was ordered at the tail-end of the same year.269
261
262
Ibid.
263
Rodney Tasker, ‘Thailand: Silent Service’, Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), 156,
42 (1993), p. 30.
264
Leszek Buszynski, ‘Thailand’s Foreign Policy: Management of a Regional Vision’,
Asian Survey (AS), 34, 8 (1994), p. 725.
265
Ibid.
266
Ibid.
267
Wattanayagorn, p. 211.
268
Goldrick and McCaffrie, p. 169, fn.98.
269
Ibid., p. 169.
The latter in particular augured the RTN’s true blue-water aspirations. As

Lieutenant Frank Jones pithily notes:
[t]his purchase alone illuminates the direction the mission of the RTN is
moving. A coastal defense navy has no need for a tanker of this size. Tankers
of that tonnage only become useful when a group of ships are on a signifi-
cant transit or engaged in a lengthy patrol.270
The RTN was obviously aware of the changed strategic environment.

By this time, the external threat faced by Thailand from a Soviet-backed
Vietnam had dissipated considerably, given the Vietnamese withdrawal
from Cambodia in September 1989,271 and the breakup of the Soviet Union
that heralded the end of the Cold War in August 1991.272 Furthermore,
the last time the Minsk carrier group had menaced the Gulf of Thailand
was way back in 1982. Thus, acquiring a 22,000 tonne replenishment ship
circa 1994 was, from a tactical point of view, somewhat questionable. In
fact, that same criticism could also be levelled at the RTN for procuring
its aircraft carrier in 1992. This was because the navy’s intention of forg-
ing an all-arms integrated ‘defence in depth’ maritime security framework
was premised to a large extent on the RTN’s anticipated supporting role
in an impending conventional war. In these changed circumstances, a new
raison d’etre had to be advanced if similar procurements, for example,
additional armour for its marines, as well as submarines and tactical aircraft
for its navy, were to be successfully pursued. What the RTN needed was an
alternative maritime security threat that was still significant enough so as
not to dilute its chances of achieving blue-water naval status.
As highlighted earlier, although Thailand is an EEZ-locked nation, it
has significant commercially exploitable maritime assets, not only in the
Gulf of Thailand but also in the Andaman Sea. Goldrick and McCaffrie
acknowledge that while land-based threats to the country had indeed
diminished since the end of the Cold War, nevertheless
270
Frank C. Jones, ‘Naval Trends in ASEAN: Is there a New Arms Race?’ Master’s Thesis,
1995, USN Naval Postgraduate School, 1995, pp. 73–74.
271
272
Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, ‘Introduction: The End of the Cold War in
Europe’, in Robert O. Keohane, Joseph S. Nye and Stanley Hoffmann, eds, After the Cold
War: International Institutions and State Strategies in Europe, 1989–1991, Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1993, p. 1.
[o]il and gas exploitation and fisheries continued to gain economic impor-
tance and Thailand expected that issues arising from maritime boundaries
and the maritime domain could cause future conflict. Thus, the RTN tried
to develop a real two-ocean capability, to match the extent of Thai maritime
interests, including a good deal of seaborne trade, 95 per cent of which
passed through the Gulf of Thailand.273
The navy was therefore contending that non-traditional maritime secu-

rity threats (including piracy and maritime terrorism) were just as damag-
ing to Thailand’s national interest as those that were more militaristic in
nature, particularly in the context of protecting two significant and dis-
tinct maritime domains, i.e. the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand.274
Consequently, the acquisition of large naval procurements like the replen-
ishment ship mentioned earlier was “a reasonable response to the intro-
duction of EEZs and the growing need to protect international and
domestic trade.”275
Given this renewed impetus to address non-traditional maritime secu-
rity threats, the following measures were taken by the RTN:
• Seeking approval from the government in 1995 for the construction

of a naval base on the island of Phuket276 (this would later become
the site of Thailand’s Third Area Command, the most important
naval base along the Andaman coast)277;
• Leasing an additional USN Knox class frigate as well as purchasing
Harpoon surface-to-surface missiles in 1996278;
• In addition to its towed artillery, investing the marine corps with
armour in the form of a tank company in 1996279;
• Ordering two Italian Gaeta class mine warfare vessels in October
1996280; and
273
274
Ibid.
275
Ibid.
276
Ibid., p. 168.
277
Phuket Gazette (PG) (Thailand), October 1. 2014. Retrieved from http://phuketga-
zette.net/phuket-news/Phuket-Navy-base-swaps-top-brass/36058#ad-image-0 (Accessed
on 22 January 2015).
278
279
Ibid., p. 168.
280
Ibid., p. 169.
• Purchasing three patrol craft and three Landing Craft Utility ves-
sels from a consortium that included, among others, the Australian
Submarine Corporation, in October 1997.281
Even though a great deal of goodwill had accrued to the RTN post-May
1992, there was still some obstacle that prevented the navy from secur-
ing submarines for its fleet. Even Prime Minister Chuan had occasion to
reject the navy’s proposal for such vessels because of budgetary concerns
in 1994.282 And when cabinet finally approved its procurement, a cor-
ruption scandal involving some of the relevant government officials and
members of parliament associated with the purchase erupted in November
1995.283 Although ultimately unsubstantiated,284 this incident nonetheless
led to the scuppering of the deal.285 Ever resilient though, the RTN then
drew up a comprehensive ten-year plan in January 1997 that was designed
to strengthen the navy through arms acquisition “regardless of the bud-
get restraints and austerity policy reiterated by the Prime Minister.”286 As
fate would have it however, the Asian Financial Crisis struck the region
shortly thereafter,287 and Thailand, in particular, had to not only reduce
its defence budget by 23%,288 the country also had to weather the devalu-
ing of the Thai baht by 60% when its government took the decision to
float the currency in July 1997.289 The so-called Tom Yam Kung Crisis
made it impossible for the RTN to revisit this issue until well into the new
millennium.290
281
Ibid.
282
Suchit Bunbongkarn, ‘Thailand in 1995: The More Things Change, the More They
Remain the Same’, Southeast Asian Affairs (SAA), 1996, p. 365.
283
Duncan McCargo, Media and Politics in Pacific Asia, London: RoutledgeCurson,
2003, p. 130.
284
Duncan McCargo, ‘The International Media and the Domestic Political Coverage of
the Thai Press’, Modern Asian Studies (MAS), 33, 3 (1999), pp. 551–579.
285
TN, 5 April. 2011; Bangkok Post (BP) (Thailand), 20 November. 2014. Retrieved from
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/444449/navy-renews-push-for-sub-plan
(Accessed on 22 January 2015).
286
Wattanayagorn, p. 220.
287
288
Ibid.
289
Ibid.
290
The Nation (TN) (Thailand), 23 November. 2014. Retrieved from http://www.
nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Navys-submarine-acquisition-plan-can-wait-30248361.
html (Accessed on 22 January 2015).
The Fifth Period: 2000–2012

Police Lieutenant-Colonel Thaksin Shinawatra came into office on 9
February 2001,291 riding a wave of electoral popularity during a period of
relative strategic calm but slow economic recovery.292 His administration
however was not characterised by increased civilian rule per se but rather
one that attempted to establish personal dominion over the military, and
in particular, the RTA.293 According to Chambers, Prime Minister Thaksin
“became a new pillar in the Thai political equilibrium–below the palace,
[but] above the military….”294 The prime minister wanted to consolidate
his power, and to that end would first have to displace the “elaborate
military patronage network”295 put in place by General Prem, who was
then a very influential royal Privy Councillor.296 This objective would be
implemented by replacing all the key appointment holders within the army
(i.e. the “old guard”) with officers whom Prime Minister Thaksin could
trust.297 His goal was clear—”to convert the military into a direct source
of political support, a major component of his power base.”298 Thus, in
these circumstances, it is arguable that the army’s “old guard” was far too
busy resisting Prime Minister Thaksin’s overhaul to be overly concerned
with its rivalry with the RTN.299
The strategic environment was also dramatically changed when the
USA came under attack by Al-Qaeda on 11 September 2001—usher-
291
htm.
292
293
Paul Chambers, ‘Where Agency Meets Structure: Understanding Civil-Military
Relations in Contemporary Thailand’, Asian Journal of Political Science (AJPS), 19, 3
(2011), p. 297.
294
Ibid.
295
Duncan McCargo and Ukrist Pathmanand, The Thaksinization of Thailand.
Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2005, p. 150. This was a network that linked the military to “busi-
ness groups, political parties, senior civil servants and powerful newspapers in a complex
web…”: ibid., p. 134.
296
Ibid., p. 130.
297
For example, family members and friends, as well as fellow graduates of Class 10 of the
Armed Forces Academies Preparatory School: ibid., pp. 135–151.
298
Ibid.
299
To a certain extent, this argument is supported by the fact that the army included the
navy in its 2006 coup against Prime Minister Thaksin: Michael J. Montesano, ‘Thailand: A
Reckoning with History Begins’, Southeast Asian Affairs (SAA), (2007), p. 322.
ing in the “Global War on Terrorism”.300 Such terrorist attacks were of

course not new to the Southeast Asian region. Of particular note, the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a Filipino terrorist organisation, blew up
the ferry Our Lady Mediatrix in February 2000, killing forty people, and
wounding fifty others.301 The Abu Sayyaf, another Filipino terrorist group
operating in the same area, had likewise made its presence felt by launch-
ing a sea-based attack on tourists, kidnapping them from off the very
beaches of Sipadan, Malaysia, on 23 April 2000.302 The attacks grew even
more widespread, and religious sectarian violence, this time in Indonesia,
resulted in the destruction of the ferry Kalifornia, killing ten, and injuring
many other Christians in Indonesia’s Maluku Archipelago in December
2001.303 On 12 October 2002, Bali became the site of multiple bombings
by the Jemaah Islamiyah, which killed 202 people, many of whom were
foreigners.304
This was a conflict in which Prime Minister Thaksin wanted to stand
shoulder-to-shoulder with America,305 and as a consequence, he took the
following steps to show his support for the USA:
• 443 Thai troops were sent to Iraq, albeit as a ‘silent partner’ of

President George W Bush’s “coalition of the willing”.306 Although
this was deemed to be a token force, it should be noted that two
Thai soldiers were killed in line of duty in this conflict;
• On 11 June 2003, Thailand became a signatory to the US’ Container
Security Initiative,307 a multilateral measure that required containers
300
301
John F. Bradford, ‘The Growing Prospects for Maritime Security Cooperation in
Southeast Asia’, Naval War College Review (NWCR), 58, 3 (2005), p. 67.
302
BBC News (BBCN), 24 April. 2000. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
asia-pacific/724336.stm (Accessed on 22 January 2015); BBC News, 30 December. 2000.
Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/719623.stm (Accessed on 22
January 2015).
303
Bradford, p. 67.
304
The Jakarta Post (TJP) (Indonesia), 13 October. 2014. Retrieved from http://www.
thejakartapost.com/news/2014/10/13/twelve-years-bali-bombing-continues-haunt-vic-
tims.html#sthash.Jz46kTCA.dpuf (Accessed on 22 January 2015).
305
306
Ann Marie Murphy, ‘United States Relations with Southeast Asia: The Legacy of Policy
Changes’, in Ann Marie Murphy and Bridget Welsh, eds, Legacy of Engagement in Southeast
Asia, Singapore: ISEAS Publications, 2008, pp. 270–271.
307
Romero, p. 600.
bound for America to be inspected for Weapons of Mass Destruction

before departing from local ports;
• In July 2003, RTN chiefs attended the ASEAN Navies Interaction
group to discuss the need for regional vigilance in relation to high-
value and vulnerable targets, as well as contingency plans to deal
with the ramifications that such attacks could have on the maritime
environment and the resources contained therein308;
• Thai special branch police also played an important part in the arrest
of one of the masterminds of the Bali bombing, Riduan Isamuddin
or Hambali, in August 2003309;
• Even though funds were still scarce, Prime Minister Thaksin autho-
rised a 15% increase in the defence budget in September 2003.310
Most of these monies were allocated to the army and the air force,311
but Prime Minister Thaksin was usually careful to include all three
major arms of the military whenever he went on a procurement
exercise312;
• To situate these efforts against terrorism within the wider context
of establishing closer security ties within the Southeast Asian region,
Thailand signed the Declaration of ASEAN Concord II (or the Bali
Concord II) on 7 October 2003.313
In recognition of these endeavours, Thailand was shortly thereafter

accorded the status of being a major non-NATO ally of the USA,314 a
standing that “entitled Thailand to priority access to defence equipment
and increased intelligence sharing.”315 Chambers notes that this achieve-
ment (and the benefits that would accrue from it) further bolstered Prime
Minister Thaksin’s position as against the army’s old guard.316
308
309
ABC News (ABCN) (Australia), 15 August. 2003. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.
au/news/2003-08-15/hambali-arrested-in-thailand-reports/1464988 (Accessed on 22
January 2015).
310
311
Ibid.
312
McCargo and Ukrist Pathmanand, p. 151.
313
314
USA Today (USAT), 20 October. 2003. Retrieved from http://usatoday30.usatoday.
com/news/washington/2003-10-19-us-apec_x.htm (Accessed on 22 January 2015).
315
316
Chambers, Where Agency, p. 297.
While the RTN was not especially privileged by Prime Minister Thaksin,
we would argue that it was not particularly marginalised either, as the
“rivalry” between the navy and army did not feature heavily when pro-
curements were decided upon by cabinet, or in this case, the prime minis-
ter himself. All three military arms were affected, albeit to varying degrees,
by the continuing effects of the Asian Financial Crisis. In fact, according to
Goldrick and McCaffrie “[t]he extent of the country’s financial difficulties
became evident in the Thai government determination in late 2005 to use
barter trade to finance military procurement.”317 Nevertheless, the RTN
was able to acquire sufficient funds to
• Deploy its aircraft carrier to participate in disaster relief missions dur-

ing, for example, the Songkhla Province flooding (2000), and the
Boxing Day Tsunami (2004), as well as to evacuate Thai citizens
who were at risk of injury amid the Cambodian anti-Thai protests
(2003)318;
• Conduct coordinated naval patrols with Malaysia to reduce the risk
of piracy and maritime terrorism in the northern entrance of the
Malacca Strait (2003)319;
• Order two 95m Offshore Patrol Vessels from the Chinese (December
2003)320;
• Take part in the Western Pacific Naval Symposium mine warfare
exercise involving 15 countries (April to May 2004)321;
• Locally build three Tor991 class patrol boats (2004–2006)322;
• Become a founding member of the Japanese-led ReCAAP through its
maritime security proxy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (November
2004);
• Sign a memorandum of understanding with the Indian Navy on the
coordinated naval patrol procedures to be used in areas adjacent to
the international maritime boundary as well as the establishment of
lines of communication between the two navies (2005)323;
317
318
Matthews and Lazano, p. 70.
319
Carolin Liss, Oceans of Crime: Maritime Piracy and Transnational Security in Southeast
Asia and Bangladesh, Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2011, p. 295.
320
321
Ibid., p. 171.
322
Ibid., p. 173.
323
Pornsuriya, p. 93.
• Purchase two Agusta Westland Super Lynx 300 multirole helicopters

(February 2005)324;
• Conduct the first ever joint naval exercise with China (December
2005)325; and
• Locally build a Dutch-designed multipurpose hydrographic survey
ship (December 2005).326
While the RTN was not able to make any significant naval procure-
ments during Prime Minister Thaksin’s first (February 2001 to March
2005) and second (March 2005 to September 2006) terms, it was not
however an onerous period for the navy either. The government’s focus
on fighting the Global War on Terrorism,327 and the old guard’s “cold
war” with the prime minister, meant that the navy was left for the most
part unmolested. Nevertheless, given the continuing deleterious effects
of the Asian Financial Crisis, the RTN was not in a position to advance
its agenda of acquiring a fully seagoing war fleet that would be capable
of operationalising an all-arms integrated “defence in depth” maritime
security framework across two distinct maritime domains. Furthermore,
Herrmann argues that
as regional concerns … [were] mounting over maritime territorial sover-

eignty, offshore resource protection, resurgent piracy, terrorism, search and
rescue and, in the wake of the 2004 tsunami, disaster relief, the RTN switched
its acquisition priorities from “blue-water” warships with surface, underwa-
ter and air warfare capabilities, to Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPVs), suitable for
cost-effective patrol, enforcement, response and surveillance duties.328
Although Herrmann is correct in his assessment, we would contend that

this “switch” was simply a transient response, and did not represent a
324
325
Chulacheeb Chinwanno, ‘Rising China and Thailand’s Policy of Strategic Engagement’,
in Jun Tsunekawa, ed., The Rise of China: Responses from Southeast Asia and Japan, Tokyo:
The National Institute for Defense Studies, 2009, p. 103.
326
327
Prime Minister Thaksin was also heavily involved in fighting other battles, including his
‘wars’ against poverty in the rural North and North-East (2001), drugs (2003), and the
Muslim insurgents in the Deep South (2004). While these struggles would gain him consid-
erable success in the elections, ironically, these conflicts were also the ‘seeds’ of his eventual
political demise.
328
Herrmann, Thailand’s, p. 153.
lasting change in the RTN’s long-term maritime security goals. The navy
was biding its time—“treading water”, if you will—until the financial situ-
ation improved. As highlighted by Goldrick and McCaffrie, even as late
as 2005, the RTN was still attempting, albeit unsuccessfully, to secure
from the Thaksin government, submarines, frigates, as well as new sensors
and weapons for its aircraft carrier.329 In the meantime (February 2001
to September 2006), the RTN took the opportunity to enhance its intel-
ligence gathering capacity, operational standards, and relationships with
various naval counterparts in ASEAN,330 the USA, India, China,331 and
Japan.332 Perhaps the only really disappointing event for the RTN333 came
when Supreme Commander General Ruengroj Mahasaranond (one of the
key central decision-making positions highlighted earlier) refused to allow
Thailand’s air force and navy to join Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore
in conducting coordinated naval and joint air patrols of the Malacca and
Singapore straits in May 2006 on grounds that “[i]t … [was] very far
from us” and that “[i]t … [was] not worth sending our ships and planes
there because the costs will be extraordinary.”334 Fortunately for the RTN,
such sentiments did not appear to be shared by the prime minister, and he
was quite sympathetic towards the operational needs of the navy. In fact,
he was in the process of approving the procurement of significant naval
assets for the navy—two frigates, two Landing Platform/Dock vessels,
four Offshore Patrol Vessels, and, most importantly, two submarines335—
just before he was deposed by the Council for Democratic Reform under
Constitutional Monarchy336 on 19 September 2006.337
329
330
Note however that the RTN was not able to acquire any funds to take part in year-
round tri-partite coordinated naval patrols of the Malacca and Singapore straits—an initiative
that had been established by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore in 2004.
331
Herrmann, Thailand’s, pp. 144–45.
332
Takeshi Kohno, ‘Japanese Civilian Cooperation in Maritime Security since 1999’, in
Sam Bateman and Joshua Ho, eds, Southeast Asia and the Rise of Chinese and Indian Naval
Power: Between Rising Naval Powers, Oxford: Routledge, 2010, p. 178.
333
334
Reuters (R), 19 May. 2006. Retrieved from http://t2.thai360.com/index.php?/
topic/30549-thais-rebuff-joint-patrols/ (Accessed on 22 January 2015).
335
336
Montesano, p. 322.
337
Although the coup leader, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, included all the
arms of the military in his junta (army, navy, police, and air force), Michael
Montesano highlights that “[d]espite this show of inter-service solidarity,
apparently not effected without some tense exchanges, the putsch was an
army affair.”338 Chaloemtiarana also notes how the police commander was
so unenthused at being a party to this betrayal, that he was later summarily
replaced with another.339 Admiral Sathiraphan Keyanon, the Commander
of the RTN,340 was likewise only an observer until he subsequently gave the
new regime his cautious support,341 perhaps mindful that General Sonthi
appeared to have the approval of not only General Prem but also the palace
itself.342 Whatever the reason, the RTA and the RTN were once again rec-
onciled (post-May 1992), and fighting on the same political side.
This of course prompts the question: would the RTN have fared bet-
ter under Prime Minister Thaksin or General Sonthi’s junta? That is cer-
tainly an interesting issue to ponder, especially in light of Prime Minister
Thaksin’s second term procurement plans for the navy. General Sonthi
selected General Surayud Chulanont as prime minister and, on 21
November 2006, the latter publicly gave his assurance that his govern-
ment would “support every operation of the Royal Thai Navy in order
to bring about happiness in the Thai society.”343 While this sounded very
promising, the public rhetoric was unfortunately not matched by comple-
mentary action, and the navy’s fortunes under Prime Minister Surayud did
not improve by any significant measure. Chambers points out how during
General Surayud’s term (8 October 2006 to 6 February 2008),344 armed
forces spending spiralled, with his first budget (for 2007) chalking up a
60% increase in military spending and an additional 19% in the second year
(2008).345 And yet, the navy did not receive any big ticket items during
this timeframe.
338
Montesano, p. 322.
339
Chaloemtiarana, Distinctions, p. 69.
340
Ukrist Pathmanand, ‘A Different Coup D’etat?’ Journal of Contemporary Asia (JCA),
38,1 (2008), p. 126.
341
342
Chambers, Where Agency, p. 298.
343
National News Bureau of Thailand (NNBT), 21 November. 2006. Retrieved from
http://202.47.224.92/en/news.php?id=254911210010 (Accessed on 22 January 2015).
344
htm.
345
Paul W. Chambers, ‘In the Shadow of the Soldier’s Boot: Assessing Civil-Military
Relations in Thailand’, in Marc Askew, ed., Legitimacy Crisis in Thailand, Chiang Mai:
Silkworm Books and King Prajadhipok’s Institute, 2010, p. 201.
The succeeding governments of Samak Sundaravej (January 2008

to September 2008)346 and Somchai Wongsawat (September 2008 to
December 2008),347 although democratically elected, were acutely aware
of the dangers of antagonising the RTA, both of them being pro-Thaksin
supporters. Consequently, these prime ministers did not unduly restrain
the acquisitive appetites of the military.348 Of particular note for the navy,
Captain Wongnakornsawang took pride in the signing of an agreement
with Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore on 18 September 2008 that
allowed the RTN to conduct coordinated naval patrols of the Malacca and
Singapore straits commencing in 2009 under the auspices of the Malacca
Strait Patrol.349 It apparently took two years of negotiating with govern-
ments headed by different premiers350 before the RTN was finally given
an additional annual budget of around 122,000 US dollars to take part in
this initiative.351
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva (December 2008 to August 2011),352
on the other hand, although being pro-army, attempted to reduce mili-
tary expenditure, due in part to the crippling ramifications of the Global
Financial Crisis of 2007/2008.353 Unfortunately, he found the task
extremely daunting, and was not able to constrain military spending as
much as he would have liked.354 Notwithstanding his close relationship
with the RTA, the navy actually benefited greatly when Prime Minister
Abhisit was in power. In 2009, the RTN was allowed to engage the com-
pany BVT Surface Fleet Ltd, a leading British provider of surface warships,
346
htm.
347
Thai Government Cabinet website: http://www.cabinet.thaigov.go.th/eng/history58.
htm.
348
Chambers, In the Shadow, p. 202.
349
350
As discussed earlier, Supreme Commander General Ruengroj Mahasaranond had
rejected this proposal outright in May 2006.
351
352
Thai Government Cabinet website: http://www.cabinet.thaigov.go.th/eng/history.
htm.
353
Chambers, In the Shadow, p. 202.
354
Ibid.
to supply the design of a large Offshore Patrol Vessel that would be built
in Thailand, with the prospect of more to come in the future, funds per-
mitting.355 Thereafter, the prime minister approved funding for the RTN
to deploy two ships, the Offshore Patrol Vessel, HTMS Pattani, and a
replenishment tanker, the HTMS Similan, to the Gulf of Aden and the
Western Indian Ocean, so that they could take part in an anti-piracy
operation in September 2010,356 under the auspices of a multinational
naval partnership of 30 nations called the Combined Maritime Force.357
This was an extremely significant investment in the navy because the cost
of this first operation (which included 350 sailors and 20 special forces
troops) amounted to around nine million US dollars.358 Abhisit’s govern-
ment would later authorise additional monies for the RTN to redeploy its
ships to the region once more in July 2011.359 On the international front,
the RTN (together with its allies within the Ministries of Foreign Affairs
and Transport) was also acquiring numerous accolades for Thailand’s
role in regional and global maritime security matters. From 2006 to
2012, Thailand was a member state of the IMO’s Executive Council.
From 2009 to 2011, Thailand held the Chairmanship of the ReCAAP
Governing Council. Perhaps because of its growing international clout
or its improved image within Thai public consciousness, Tan was of the
opinion that Prime Minister Abhisit felt the need to shore up RTN sup-
port for his government, and given this dependence, “the Navy was able
to persuade … [his cabinet] to authorise the acquisition of six ex-German
Type 206 submarines in early 2011.”360 Given this good news, Admiral
Kamthorn immediately called for a submarine squadron to be established,
replete with a headquarters and a training school in April 2011.361
Unfortunately for the RTN though, Prime Minister Abhisit’s
Democrat Party lost the 2011 parliamentary polls—an election that
355
356
357
The ‘Combined Maritime Force’ website may be accessed here: http://combinedmari-
timeforces.com/.
358
359
Goldrick and McCaffrie, pp. 174, 176.
360
361
Phuket News (PN) (Thailand), 14 October. 2013. Retrieved from http://www.
thephuketnews.com/submarine-base-nears-completion-royal-thai-navy-now-needs-a-
fleet-42341.php (Accessed on 22 January 2015).
heralded in Thailand’s first female prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra’s

sister, Yingluck.362 Sadly for the navy, the proposed purchase of the sub-
marines was swiftly overturned by Prime Minister Yingluck on the basis
that the preceding cabinet’s decision-making processes were not transpar-
ent enough.363 There was however no hint of payback against the RTN
for joining the coup against her brother. In reality, the events leading
up to this were more farcical than disappointing, because the new prime
minister initially informed the press on 27 September 2011 that she had
approved the procurement, only for her spokesman to issue a correction
two hours later.364 It was actually the army’s helicopters that had been
endorsed and not the submarines.365 The press reported that “Yingluck
even giggled about the blunder, saying she hoped she didn’t get the sail-
ors too excited over the mistake.”366 That said, the prime minister still
offered the navy an opportunity to put forward arguments as to why these
submarines were required. For a while things looked promising especially
since the RTN was able to articulate a relatively strong justification for
the acquisition of the submarines, i.e. they were “needed to protect the
country’s maritime resources and to ensure strategic parity with neigh-
bouring countries which have been acquiring submarines.”367 Alas, it was
not meant to be, and by March 2012, the navy chief, Admiral Surasak
Runroengrom, reluctantly conceded that the RTN would no longer be
able to purchase the second hand vessels from Germany, probably because
the price tags for them had since increased tremendously (i.e. from 5.5
billion baht to 7.6 billion baht, and this was only for four of the subma-
rines instead of the original six).368 The RTN was undeterred by this set-
back, and gained international recognition when it took command of the
362
Thai Government Cabinet website: http://www.cabinet.thaigov.go.th/eng/his-
tory_60.htm.
363
364
The Nation (TN) (Thailand), 28 September. 2011. Retrieved from http://www.
nationmultimedia.com/politics/PMs-submarine-mix-up-30166310.html (Accessed on 22
January 2015).
365
Ibid.
366
The Nation (TN) (Thailand), 30 September. 2011. Retrieved from http://www.
nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Leaner-and-more-ef ficient-armed-forces-are-
needed-30166477.html (Accessed on 22 January 2015).
367
368
Asian Correspondent (AS), 14 March. 2012. Retrieved from http://asiancorrespon-
dent.com/78065/thai-navys-250m-submarine-plan-scuppered/ (Accessed on 23 January
2015).
Combined Task Force 151 (counter-piracy) under the CMF on 29 March

2012.369 Knowing that there was little political support for submarines
(the fear being that it will end up being another “white elephant” like
its aircraft carrier),370 the navy changed course and was able to convince
Prime Minister Yingluck’s cabinet on 18 September 2012 to approve a 30
billion baht budget to procure two frigates over the next six years.371 The
hunt for submarines however is far from over because of the vital role they
play in the RTN’s blue-water ambitions. It will also probably be harder for
succeeding Thai governments to refuse the navy these vessels given that
the RTN already has a submarine squadron, as well as a newly custom-
built submarine headquarters and training facility to boot (July 2014).372
Conclusion
The RTN’s search for “credible roles and access to cheap equipment”
dominates its operational mindset, framed as it were by its turbulent rela-
tionship with the RTA. Thailand’s maritime security policies appear to be
formulated not so much by the presence or absence of imminent or future
threats to national security (important though they may be) but rather
on the outcome of the internecine conflict between the army and the
navy. Their relationship and how that bears on policy-making is, however,
not one-dimensional by any measure. At various points in time, conflicts
between them may turn to rapprochement, and vice versa, and because of
that, trying to discern a coherent and consistent rationale for Thailand’s
maritime security policies and naval procurements has been a challenging
endeavour. The sheer dynamism in which policy-making is made subject
to the political contestation of the army, navy, and mediatory civilian poli-
ticians creates a risk that we might inadvertently focus our attention on
the epiphenomenal rather than on what is truly its essence. In this regard,
how maritime security is defined and managed is constantly vulnerable to
“capture and recapture, construction and reconstruction” by coalitions of
social actors who are led primarily by sub-governmental entities like the
RTA and the RTN. Thus, in order for us to truly understand how and
369
370
AS, 14 March. 2012.
371
Ibid.
372
The Phuket News (TPK) (Thailand), 9 July. 2014. Retrieved from http://www.
thephuketnews.com/phuket-thai-commander-welcomes-new-submarine-centre-despite-
lack-of-subs-47278.php (Accessed on 22 January 2015).
why Thailand’s maritime security policies are articulated and implemented

in the way that they have been, we must strive to uncover the underlying
identities, interests, and power of key individuals and groups within the
army and navy because they are the ones who will be exerting pressure on
the central decision makers (for example: the Supreme Commander; the
Minister of Defence; the Prime Minister and his/her cabinet) to formu-
late maritime security policies that are consistent with their preferences.
Only by doing so, can we then make sense of the way Thailand’s maritime
security policies have developed over the years—sometimes quite inde-
pendently of the actual threat levels affecting the country’s overarching
national interests. This chapter does not advocate the marginalisation of
macro level factors. They are certainly important. Financial crises, the
level of technological advancement, geopolitical instabilities, and physi-
cal geography are all extremely pertinent circumstances when analysing
security issues. However, adopting a “bottom-up” approach against the
background these macro level conditions yields much more useful insights
into state behaviour. In this particular study, while the RTA’s political
hegemony often “compels” the central decision makers to define mari-
time security in ways that privilege the army’s preferences (which naturally
impacts upon the budget for naval procurements, manpower, operations,
maintenance, and upgrading costs), these policies will nevertheless adapt
during periods of army-navy alliances; or change quite significantly when
the navy achieves some semblance of political dominance over the army.
That said, macro level factors (for example, wars with neighbouring coun-
tries, significant increase in the number of piratical and/or maritime ter-
rorist attacks in Thai waters, or an escalating regional arms race, etc.) will
still exert some influence on the way the conflict is fought between the
warring intra-state coalitions. Such macro factors can also shape the out-
come of the conflict itself, for example, the way technology or a financial
crisis will limit the ability of the central decision makers to formulate a
policy that best reflects the preferences of the “victor” (i.e. the RTA or the
RTN, as the case may be).
CHAPTER 9
Sea Power and Maritime Disputes: China’s

Internal Discourses
Xin Chen
Introduction
If yesterday, China’s surge to modernity and wealth could be described
as the world swarming into its special economic zones for investment
opportunities and cheap labour, today it is China striding vigorously into
the world. Through its enormous appetite for energy, resources, com-
modities, and markets, China has been transforming many economies in
the world and generating amazement, jealousy, and anxiety in the four
corners of the earth. China’s expanding global reach and increasing pres-
ence in the world economy has meanwhile multiplied its security concerns.
The Chinese concept of national security has accordingly been broadened
to include continued socio-economic development and improvement of
China’s international status.
Likewise, its frame of reference for assessing threats has undergone
a “colour shift” from focusing on the “yellow” (continental) land and
“brown” (coastal) waters to emphasising the “blue” (high) seas. Its armed
forces, in particular its navy, have also embarked on a comprehensive
X. Chen (*)

208 X. CHEN
long-term strategy to upgrade their capabilities both quantitatively and

qualitatively. All this, as may be expected, has continuously fuelled specula-
tions about the extent to which China will use military measures to secure
a free transit of its seaborne commerce and access to maritime resources
in Asia’s disputed waters, and to deny sea control to extra-regional pow-
ers, especially during a crisis in the Taiwan Strait or elsewhere in maritime
Asia.1
There may very well be a logical correlation, as the Chinese argue,
between economic growth and defence modernisation. Given that its
economic development depends heavily on foreign trade and imported
petroleum and other raw materials, China may also have legitimate secu-
rity concerns over unimpeded resource extraction in the surrounding seas
and an uninhibited passage in international waters. Similarly, given that
China is known for its limited command of the global commons, which
has resulted in its accelerated reliance on foreign security protection of sea
lines of communication, Beijing may rightly sense an urgency to increase
its own defence budget for a better safety control over vital maritime
highways. Yet unless it comes up with a well-illustrated roadmap for its
promised “peaceful” rise and a convincing explanation for how its military
build-up is in keeping with its peaceful aspiration, China’s maritime secu-
rity precautions, routine or otherwise, cannot but help ferment negative
perceptions and presumptions of its maritime strategy in the Asian waters
and, in turn, feed the “threat” theory.
Yet China does not appear readily able to deliver such a blueprint. As
this chapter will show, the Chinese are still wrestling among themselves
with the definition of “rise”, “peace”, “security”, and “threat”. Taking
stock of the dominant discursive positions currently existing in China,
this chapter intends to illuminate the breadth and depth of discussions
among Chinese policy elites and the broader public on these fundamen-
tal and loaded concepts. By presenting a comprehensive overview of the
plethora of contending public narratives about these issues expressed
through Chinese academic outlets, newspaper opinion pages, and social
media blogs, this study is also meant to illustrate that security-hawkish
and moderate Chinese can neither persuade each other over their respec-
tive appraisals of the geostrategic landscape in Asia, nor totally dismiss
each other’s judgements of effective tension management in the troubled
1
Preeti Nalwa, “‘Cheonan’ Epilogue: Prelude to the Sino-US Incompatibility on the
South China Sea Dispute”, Strategic Analysis 35:2 (2011), p. 228.
SEA POWER AND MARITIME DISPUTES: CHINA’S INTERNAL DISCOURSES 209
waters of the region. The message that this chapter aspires to get across is
that in the absence of a discursive consensus on “security” and “threats”,
the Chinese may prove proficient in outlining near- and mid-term pol-
icy priorities and options for their maritime interests. They are less likely,
however, to articulate their long-term maritime goals in specific terms or
with one voice. As a result, China and its official policies are not yet able to
escape the dilemma of “threat to China” and “China threat” in addressing
its maritime security concerns in Asia and beyond.
Maritime Security Appraisal: Through a Hobbesian

or Lockean Lens?
Strong and sustained economic growth has remained China’s top prior-
ity since Deng Xiaoping initiated the market-oriented reforms in the late
1970s. In recent years, economic development has been further defined
in the discourse of “peaceful rise” as one of China’s three core national
interests, the other two being security and dignity.2 The Chinese leader-
ship, while not necessarily subscribing to the conventional wisdom on the
correlation between its political legitimacy and its economic performance,
has been consistent and concise in arguing that if China does not narrow
its economic gap with the industrialised world in a timely manner, it will
be doomed to travel the road to ruin.3
The overriding importance attached to continued economic growth
has accordingly elevated the issue of national economic security from a
concept to a real concern for many in China’s policy and research cir-
cles. Since the 1990s, much of their anxiety has arisen, in particular, from
their perceived security challenges facing China in the maritime arena.
They agonise, for example, over the likelihood of China’s prosperous and
economically hyperactive east coast, which has spearheaded China’s drive
towards modernisation, being susceptible to attacks from the waters.4
Given that China’s foreign trade in goods makes up a large portion of
its GDP and that the majority of its cargo tonnage is carried by sea, they
2
Edward Wong, “China Hedges Over Whether South China Sea Is a ‘Core Interest’
Worth War”, New York Times, March 30, 2011, p. A12.
3
Xiao Feng, “Jiujing yinggai ruhe kandai sulian jieti” [how should the Soviet implosion be
interpreted], Xuexi shibao [study times], June 27, 2011, p. 2.
4
Zhang Wenmu, “‘Tian an jian shijian’ hou dongya zhanlue xingshi yu zhongguo xuanze”
[East Asia strategic situation and China’s choices in the aftermath of the Cheonan incident],
Pacific Journal, Iss. 11 (2010), pp. 47–8.
210 X. CHEN
fear that its “modest” naval defence capability may not warrant an unin-
terrupted flow of maritime traffic.5 They are especially nervous about
potential disruptions to major regional or international shipping lanes and
strategic passages through which China obtains its imports of energy and
raw commodities essential for sustaining its economic growth.6 They argue
that to minimise potential resource bottlenecks, China should include in
its economic security calculus considerations of not only long-term avail-
ability, accessibility, and affordability of energy, and other building blocks
for its economic edifice, but also the ability to safely and confidently ship
them back to its shores.7
Most participants in China’s domestic policy deliberations and pub-
lic dialogues on economic security address the subject matter in broad
strategic rather than purely economic terms. They are unanimous in
emphasising that the importance of maintaining orderly and harmonious
socio-political relations domestically highlights the urgency to enhance
China’s national economic security.8 They are commonly convinced that
one major geoeconomic challenge for China in the decades to come will
be the protection and extraction of ocean resources in the Asian waters.
They generally believe that this issue will likely become most sensitive and
contentious between 2020 and 2030 when the peak of the global resource
demand and that of China’s are expected to intersect.9 They all agree that
given that China is a Pacific Rim country, major shipping arteries in this
immense body of water are vital lifelines for its economy.
Regarding the safety of and open access to sea lanes, Chinese policy
elites and interested members of the public are particularly concerned
5
Yao Yi and Qi Yue, “‘Shao zouwanlu, shao zheteng’: Zhongguo jungai wen zhong qiu
bian” [minimising delays and flip flops: change and stability in China’s military reforms],
Nanfang Zhoumo [southern weekly], April 21, 2011, p. B11.
6
Zhao Laping, “Jinhu luoben de nengyuan yunshu shengmingxian: Cong ziyuan anquan
jiaodu kan zhongguo fazhan hangmu de shenceng yiyi” [near ‘naked run’ of energy and
resources transport: building China’s aircraft carriers and resource security], Zhongguo
kuangye bao [China mining news], September 20, 2011, p. B3.
7
Zhang Monan, “Zhongguo bixu changqi jianchi de nengyuan anquan zhanlue” [China
should focus on a long-term strategy for energy security], Zhongguo nengyuan bao [China
energy news], January 28, 2013, p. 4.
8
Tang Yongsheng, “Economic Turbulence in the U.S. and Europe and Impact on China”,
World Economics and Politics, Iss. 9 (2012), p. 22.
9
Cui Xilin 2011, “Shenhai kantan shiguan zhongguo fuxing zhi meng” (deap sea explora-
tion is crucial for China’s dream of reviving the state), Zhongguo kuangye bao [China mining
news], August 16, 2011, p. B3.
about the security of critical choke points on strategic sea avenues.

These include the Malacca, Sunda, Lombok, Makassar and Korea
Straits, the waterways through the Ryukyu Islands, and the Bashi
Channel. Among them the Malacca Straits unsurprisingly attracts great
attention as most of China’s oil and other resource imports traverse
through that narrow passage.10 About two hundred million people’s
professional livelihoods are reported to also depend on the “maritime
lifeline” running through the South China Sea, the Malacca Straits,
and the Gulf of Aden.11
There is a clear consensus among the Chinese that China relies heav-
ily upon the ocean as a crucial source of commodities, provisions, trade,
transport, and growth, but has inadequate cushion against risks of sudden
interruptions of commercial maritime operations and activities. Yet there
does not seem to be a universal agreement among the Chinese on the defi-
nition of threats and the appraisal of security. Depending on the school of
thought from which they draw conceptual inspirations, they have come up
with different characterisations of the existing regional and international
order with which China interacts during its rise as a great power. Their
conclusions of what the maritime threats facing China are, and where they
lie, vary accordingly.
China takes great pride in its creation of the conceptual formula,
“socialism with Chinese characteristics”. The set phrase has conveniently
helped the leadership melt away the ideological boundary between laissez-
faire capitalism and Marxian socialism, and hence shield many theoretical
difficulties of the reforms. Yet China has not developed an “international
relations theory with Chinese characteristics” to inform or explain its inter-
actions with free-market economies and Western democracies. Filling in
this vacuum are major Western paradigms of international relations intro-
duced by Chinese IR pundits as both an academic discipline and policy
10
Lu Nanquan, “Zhong-e nengyan hezuo xianzhuang yu qianjing” [Sino-Russia energy
cooperation: current situation and prospects], Oriental Morning Post, August 7, 2012, p.
D10; and Feng Liang and Zhang Chun, “Zhongguo haishang tongdao anquan jiqi mianling
de tiaozhan” [security of sea lines of communication and challenges facing China], Guoji
wenti luntan [international outlook], Autumn (2007), p. 97.
11
Ni Lexiong, “Zhengchenggong shidai de haiquan shijian dui dangdai zhongguo de yiyi”
[significance of sea power practice in the time of Zheng Chenggong to contemporary
China], Journal of East China Normal University-Philosophy and Social Sciences, Iss. 2 (2012),
p. 22.
212 X. CHEN
instrument.12 Among the favourites are realism, liberalism, and construc-

tivism that often furnish Chinese policy and public dialogues with logic
and vocabulary on matters related to world order, national interest, secu-
rity, and threats.13 Framed by these theoretical persuasions, most Chinese
snapshots of the geopolitical reality surrounding China and attendant
maritime threats to its economic security seem to fit in the Hobbesian
enemy/conflict-Lockean rival/competition continuum, with the Kantian
friend/cooperation conception being now and then intended to substan-
tiate arguments.
For those Chinese locked in a realist mindset, the Cold War has never
really ended in Asia as most of its bilateral and multilateral security alli-
ances—a signature product of that era—remain intact.14 They readily inter-
pret those alliances as indicators that many in the region and the world
still see a Hobbesian anarchical “jungle” in Asia, in which self-interested
state actors are in a hostile relationship, relying on power and coercion as
the ultimate insurance of their national security and success.15 They argue
that the waves of “China threat” rhetoric since the implosion of the Soviet
bloc exemplifies a “residual Cold War mentality”, which insists on the real-
ist assumption that the rising China will never remain a status quo player,
but attempt to challenge the existing balance of power to increase its own
clout in the international system.16
12
Qin Yaqing, “Development of International Relations theory in China: progress through
debates”, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Iss. 11 (2011), p. 249.
13
Ye Zicheng, “Cong huaxia tixi lishi kan meiguo guoji ganxi lilun fanshi de xifang tese”
[Western characteristics of International Studies paradigms in America and the counter
example of the Huaxia system], World Economics and Politics, Iss. 2 (2012), pp. 20–1; and
Wang Yizhou, “Lun zhongguo waijiao zhuanxing” [on the transformation of China’s diplo-
macy], Xuexi yu tansuo [study & exploration], Iss. 5 (2008), pp. 66–7.
14
Wang Hongtao, “Yatai anquan jiegou de yanbian jiqi dui zhongguo de yingxiang”
[changes in the Asia-Pacific security structure and impact on China], Contemporary World,
Iss. 2 (2012), p. 59; Li Mingbao, “Mei mimou jian dongya fandao tixi” [US plotting to
build anti-missile systems in East Asia], Guangzho ribao [Guangzhou daily], February 13,
2010, p. A8; and Liu Xuelian and Li Jiacheng, “Lengzhan hou mei han tongmeng buduan
qianghua de shengceng dongyin jieshi” [fundamental reasons for the steadily deepened post-
Cold War US-Korea alliance], Jilin daxue shehui kesue suebao [Jilin University journal social
sciences edition] 50: 6 (2010), p. 59.
15
Ni Lexiong, “Zhongguo junjian chuyang huhang de lishi yiyi” [historical significance of
China sending warships overseas for escorting operations], Nanfang dushi bao [southern
metropolitan daily], December 22, 2008, p. 23.
16
Zhang Mingzhi, “Cong ‘zhongguo weixielun’ dao ‘zhongguo zerenlun’: Xifang leng-
zhan siwei dish ixia de zhongguo fazhang anquzn” [from ‘China threat’ to ‘China responsi-
They further rebut the suggestion that the “threat” thesis is rooted in
misinformation or misunderstandings of China’s reality or the Chinese
culture.17 They strongly opine that the “China threat” arguments are
politically relevant for many governments in and outside the region. The
latest illustration, they maintain, is America’s “pivot” towards Asia and
Asian countries nodding their acquiescence on the US geopolitical “rebal-
ancing” move to “counter” China’s rise.18 They urge their fellow country
people not to confuse the concept of “peace”, which means no war, with
that of “security”, which signifies no fear and uncertainty.19 Stressing that
inter-state geostrategic rivalries remain the primary security challenges to
China, they call for special attention to the “grim” situation of the “blue
territory” in the East and South China Seas. In their opinion, a matter
of immediate urgency for China in those regions is effectively to stop its
sovereign rights and maritime interests from being “nibbled” away by its
neighbours.20 Meanwhile, a longer-term challenge is to break out of the
“first island chain”, another Cold War legacy, linking and blaming Japan,
the Ryukyu/Liuqiu Islands, Taiwan, and the Philippines for “blocking”
bility’: Western Cold-War mentality and China’s development security], Forum of World
Economics and Politics, Iss. 3 (2012), pp. 6–7.
17
Ouyang Xiaomeng, “Xifang guoji ganxi zhuliu xuepai dui zhongguo jueqi de kanfa ji
women de jianyi” [rise of China through mainstream Western International Relations theo-
ries], Jingji yanjiu cankao [review of economic research], Iss. 20 (2012), pp. 62–3; and
Wang Yiwei, “Mo rang ‘jueqi’ gei huyou le” [don’t be duped by “rise”], Shijie zhishi [world
affairs], Iss. 2 (2007), p. 65.
18
Yuan Zheng and He Weibao, “Zhizhao diren: Meiguo miandui de zuida weixian” [cre-
ating enemies: the greatest danger facing the US], Renmin luntan [people’s tribune], Iss. 4
(2012), p. 57; and Cheng Hanping, “Xin lengzhan siwei xia meiguo jieru nanhai ji yu zhou-
bian guojia zhanlue hudong” [resurgence of cold-war mentality: US involvement in the
South China Sea and strategic interactions with China’s neighbours], Dongnanya zhi chuang
[window on Southeast Asia], Iss. 3 (2011), pp. 4–5.
19
Zhou Meng and Chu Zhenjiang, “Zhuangxiang youhuan yishi de jingzhong” [ringing
alarm bells for unexpected threats and dangers], Jiefangjun bao [liberation army daily],
September 20, 2013, p. 1; and Yan Xuetong, “You heping buyiding you anquan” [peace
does not mean security], Huanqiu shibao [global times], January 13, 2006, p. 11.
20
Tang Huiyuan, “Fuza zhong de jiandan” [complicated but also simple], Shijie zhishi
[world affairs], Iss. 16 (2012), p. 67; and Shen Feilie, “Zengqiang quanmin haiyang yishi
weihu guojia haiyang quanyi” [enhancing all citizens’ awareness of the sea and safeguarding
maritime rights and interests], Dili jiaoyu [education of geography], Iss. 1–2 (2011),
pp. 8–9.
214 X. CHEN
China’s access to sea lanes of communication when necessary and hence

“clogging” its economic engines dotted along its Pacific coastline.21
Realist analyses often stimulate heated debates on Chinese mainstream
and social media platforms. In the public discussions, there is no lack
of nationalistic calls for the government to take more forceful and pre-
emptive measures against alleged regional and international efforts to limit
China’s growth. Yet the continued robust and assertive articulation of the
“peaceful rise/development” discourse from across the social spectrum in
China suggests that more liberal-minded officials, opinion leaders, schol-
ars, and netizens claim a greater voice in public deliberations and policy
judgement on China’s security environment.
Like their counterparts in the realist camp, Chinese liberals, or moder-
ates, also acknowledge that China’s global economic expansion has been
greeted with consternation in many corners of the world. Yet, reflecting the
Lockean vision of the international system, they see the world as a restricted
anarchy populated by “rivals” rather than “enemies”. Accordingly, they
ascribe the prevalent fear of China’s rise to “natural” reactions of a world
facing the spectre of increased competition from and trade disputes with
Chinese enterprises and consumers.22 While not insinuating that China’s
Marxian socialism and Western market capitalism have become mutually
reconcilable, Chinese liberals have been loud and clear in arguing that the
two ideologies, and corresponding political systems for that matter, have
learned to live with, and even complement, one another in the post-Cold
War era. They maintain that supporting this “truce-without-concession”,
or “contending-without-clash” state of affairs is the force of globalisation
characterised by the global market integration that has defied ideologi-
cal as well as territorial boundaries23 They insist that despite the constant
21
Li Quan, “Meiguo jiu ‘daolian zhanlue’, zhixiang xin mubiao” [America continues its
‘island chain strategy’ but aims at new target], Shehui guancha [social outlook], Iss. 8 (2012),
p. 37; and Luo Yuan, “Meiguo de paojian zhengce keyi xiuyi” [US should can stop its gun-
boat policy now], Zhongguo qingnian bao [China youth daily], August 6, 2010, p. 9.
22
Men Honghua; “Guanjian shike: Meiguo jingying yanzhong de zhongguo, meiguo yu
shijie” [a critical moment: China, the United States and the world in the eyes of American
elites], Zhongguo shehui kexue [social sciences in China], Iss. 7 (2012), pp. 200–1; and Shi
Yinghong and Zhang Qingmin, “Ruhe huijing ‘zhongguo weixie lun’” [how to respond to
the China threat argument], Renmin Luntan [people’s tribune], Iss. 21 (2011), p. 52.
23
Fan Canghai and Shan Lianchun, “Quanqiuhua beijing xia zibenzhuyi yu shehuizhuyi
guanxi de tedian” [globalisation and impact on the relationship between capitalism and
socialism], Makesizhuyi yu xianshi (Marxism and Reality), No. 2 (2011), p. 87; and Yu
Xintian, “‘Hexie shijie’ yu zhongguo de heping fazhan daolu” [“harmonious world” and
fear of scarcity and prevalent definition of national interest in terms of

power, competition in today’s omnipresent marketplace is policed more
by Lockean “live and let live” rules than Hobbesian “fight or die” con-
ventions.24 Chinese liberals confidently argue that globalisation has cast
China and the rest of the world in a “mutually indispensable” relationship
for “vital existence” and given all involved in the world marketplace a stake
in upholding the authority of established multilateral regimes and preserv-
ing the security status quo. Chinese liberals conclude that the world is
no longer ravaged by conventional warfare, and non-traditional threats
should be the primary security frontier for joint efforts of China and the
international community.25
In getting across to the public their rather benign assessment of China’s
strategic surroundings, moderate Chinese opinion leaders stress that the
key for China to continue leveraging globalisation for its national advan-
tage is to “rise” within the existing international framework.26 They are
positive that China’s socialisation into international institutions and liber-
alisation norms will encourage many in the world to gradually stop oscil-
lating between romanticising and demonising its development and come
China’s path to peaceful rise], Guoji wenti yanjiu [international studies], Iss. 1 (2007),
pp. 8–9.
24
Qu Xing, “Renlei mingyun gongtongti de jiazhiguan jichu” [the value basis of the
shared fortune of the humankind], Qiushi [seeking truth], No. 4 (2013), pp. 53–4; and Yu
Zhengliang, “Quanqiuhua shidai: Zhongguo yu shijie heping fazhan de zhuida zhanlue
kongjian” [globalisation era: a strategic time for China’s and the world’s peaceful develop-
ment], Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi luntan [world economics and politics forum], No. 1 (2008),
p. 10.
25
Men Honghua, “Gongtong liyi yu dongbeiya hezuo” [shared interests and East Asian
cooperation], Waijiao pinglun [foreign affairs review], Iss. 3 (2013), p. 98; Wu Zhenglong,
“Daguo guanxi xian xin tedian” [new features in major power relations], Jiefang ribao [lib-
eration daily], September 16, 2013, p. 6; and Li Qingyan, “Fei chuantong anquan tiaozhan
dui zhongguo weilai zhoubian huanjing de yingxiang” [non-traditional security challenges
and impact on geostrategic environment surrounding China], Contemporary World, Iss. 9
(2012), pp. 58–9.
26
Wang Jisi, “Nuli xiaojie guoji shehui dui zhongguo heping fazhan daolu de yilu” [let’s
work to clear up doubts about China’s peaceful development], Contemporary World, No. 10
(2011), p. 1; Qin Yaqing, “Chinese Culture and Its Implications for Foreign Policy-making”,
International Studies, No. 5 (2011), pp. 32–3; and Qin Yaqing and Wei Ling, “Jiegou,
jincheng yu quanli de shehuihua: Zhongguo yu dongya diqu hezuo” [structures, processes,
and socialization of power: China and regional cooperation in East Asia], Shijie jingji yu
zheng zhi [world economics and politics], Iss. 3 (2007), p. 14.
216 X. CHEN
to terms with its rising power status.27 This, they argue in an increas-
ing volume, applies especially well to China’s attempt at ensuring and
furthering its interests in regional maritime security control and marine
resource management. In their liberal/moderate world order narratives,
the post-Cold War international system is governed by a Lockean cul-
ture that champions multilateral approaches to regional and global affairs.
Capitalising on the “favourable” situation and building its presence in
regional and international maritime institutions and conventions will help
bolster China’s image as a “responsible” power and, in turn, advance the
“legitimacy” of its maritime claims and operations. Multilateral maritime
regimes should also provide China with communication channels for miti-
gating tensions in its disputes with other countries over sovereignty and
exploitation rights in coastal and international waters.28 By investing in
building international collective platforms for effective responses, China
may meanwhile become less vulnerable to non-traditional security chal-
lenges, including seaborne attacks, which are spontaneous and at random
targets, but may lead to conventional military interventions if not man-
aged well.29
Neither Chinese realist nor liberal/moderate policy elites have ever
claimed that China’s security environment is completely Lockean, or
Hobbesian. In fact, they agree that it is a complex mixture of both cul-
tures.30 Yet gravitating to the two opposite ends of the realism-liberalism
27
Li Rex, A Rising China and Security in East Asia: Identity Construction and Security
Discourse (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), p. 18.
28
Jiang He, “Conflicts in South China Sea and Their Implications and Resolutions Viewed
from the Spirit of International Law: Taking Territorial Dispute between China and the
Philippines over the Nansha Islands as Example”, Journal of Nanjing Normal University
(Social Science Edition), No. 3 (2012), p. 42; and Huang Haixia, “Zhongguo haiyang
guotu feng buping lang bujing” [China’s maritime territory: rising wind and rolling clouds],
Jinri guotu [China territory today], Iss. 4 (2009), p. 25.
29
Li Qingyan“Fei chuantong anquan tiaozhan dui zhongguo weilai zhoubian huanjing de
yingxiang” [non-traditional security challenges and impact on geostrategic environment sur-
rounding China], Contemporary World, Iss. 9 (2012), p. 59; Li Bing, “Jianli weihu haishang
zhanlue tongdao anquan de guoji hezuo jizhi” [constructing international cooperation
mechanisms to maintain the safety of strategic sea lanes], Dangdai Shijie [Contemporary
World], Iss. 2 (2010), pp. 54–5; and Yu Xintian, “Lizu shidai qianlie: Zhongguo anquan
zhanlue de chaoyue” [stay at the forefront of the times and transcend conventional wisdom
on China’s security], Guoji wenti yanjiu [international studies], Iss. 6 (2008), pp. 26–7.
30
Guo Shuyong, “Lun duoyuan kaifang de zhengtixing de heping fazhanguan” [on the
holistic, open and multi-dimensional concept of peaceful development], Jiaoxue yu yanjiu
[teaching and research], Iss. 11 (2008), p. 55.
continuum, they see different dangers threatening China’s continued eco-

nomic development and long-term political stability. Although taking no
issue with the “aspirational appeal” of Locke’s “accommodating anarchy”
or Kant’s “perpetual peace” among “free states”, Chinese realists are cyni-
cal about China being ever admitted to the “federation of democracies”
eligible for “liberal pacifism”. They hence unequivocally insist that China
should invariably remain vigilant and prepared for Hobbes’ “war of all
against all”.31 Moderate Chinese security analysts, for their part, also admit
that both Lockean and Kantian conceptions have fallen short in explain-
ing the nature of interactions between countries within the “free-market
anarchy” and those without. Yet they maintain that the ancient Chinese
cultural concept, “there is ‘no other’ among all under the heaven”, will
help compensate for the deficiency, alleviate “clashes of civilisations”, and
make beneficiaries of “liberal peace” more inclusive. They thus call upon
the public to re-embrace the ancient Chinese wisdom and help China
become better engaged in Lockean “managed competition” and defeat its
Hobbesian foes through making them its “civilised rivals”.32 Not surpris-
ingly, that different Chinese beholders take in different aspects of China’s
security environment is also reflected in their inconclusive discussions on
its security strategies and threats management.
Threats Deterrence: Through Sea or Land Power

Building?
There is a perceptible public awareness among the Chinese that the more
China develops the more likely it will become dependent on the oceans
and seas as a medium for its commerce and as a resource supplier for its
economy. This realisation is accompanied by an intensified public concern
that China’s rapid growth and the ensuing worldwide expansion of its eco-
nomic interests have simultaneously strengthened its national economic
security and exposed its well-being to more risks.33 The growing public
unease over China’s heightened sensitivity to threats from the sea has, in
31
Ni Lexiong, “Zhongguo haiquan de dangdai zhuanxing yu weishe zuoyong” [transfor-
mation and deterrence of China’s sea power], Guoji guancha [International Review], No. 4
(2012), p. 25.
32
Zhao Tingyang, “Tianxia tixi de xiandai qishi” [the all-under-heaven concept: tradi-
tional wisdom and contemporary inspiration], Wenhua zongheng [Beijing cultural review],
No. 3 (2010), p. 38.
33
Zhang Wenmu, “‘Tian an jian shijian’”, p. 48.
218 X. CHEN
turn, attracted greater participation in the discussion on the development

of formidable sea power as an effective defence mechanism against foreign
intimidation and attacks. A search of zhongguo haiquan, or “China sea
power”, in Baidu, a popular online Chinese search engine, for example,
brings out close to three million web files and discussion sites on the sub-
ject. Yet the opinions expressed are greatly divided on if and how China
should bulk up its maritime muscle. As may be expected, those who argue
for China gaining a greater command of the blue water see a Hobbesian
world out there, rife with menaces threatening the lifeline of the Chinese
economic and social stability. On the other hand, those who push for a
land-centred capacity build-up generally base their argument on a more
optimistic perspective of China’s security environment.
As with most other Chinese national debates since the turn of the twen-
tieth century, the current robust discussions on the relationship between
sea power and national greatness also refer back to the humiliations
inflicted upon China by foreign invasions from the sea. Accordingly, the
sea power advocates remain by far the most effective in providing catchy
sound bites. For them, a fundamental reason for China’s defeat in the
two Opium Wars in the mid-nineteenth century, its loss of the 1894–5
Sino-Japanese War, and ultimate failure as a state in the final years of the
Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), was its lack of credible naval forces either to
dissuade Western aggressors from heading towards military showdowns
along China’s coastlines, or to fight back and prevail after hostilities broke
out at its sea ports.34 They growl about China’s centuries-long indiffer-
ence to the “lesson written in blood” that a nation devoid of sea power is
vulnerable to attack and that a people without a maritime outlook are sus-
ceptible to being trampled upon.35 They condemn Chinese imperial rul-
ers for China’s “entrenched continental vision and commitment”, which
is believed to have not only forfeited China’s opportunities to build an
ocean-going navy and overseas trade links, but also left its extended coast-
line and thousands of islands with little protection from foreign invasions
34
Zhang Wenmu, “Zhongguo haiquan zhanlue de bianqian” [transitions of China’s sea
power], Jungong wenhua [military industry], No. 6 (2012), pp. 23–4.
35
Li Qianghua, “History and Reality: A Comparison of Chinese and Japanese Sea Power
Strategies”, Pacific Journal, No. 5 (2012), p. 93; and Shi Chunlin, “Jin shinianlai guanyu
zhongguo haiquan wenti yanjiu pingshu” [review of the Chinese studies on sea power in the
past ten years], Xiandai guoji guanxi [contemporary international relations], Iss. 4 (2008),
p. 55.
and pirate harassments.36 They do not by any means challenge the com-
monly invoked historical explanation that China’s enduring continental
mindset was shaped by the reality that for centuries its enemies had come
across land from the north and the west rather than by sea in the east, and
that as a result, the interplay of overland and maritime concerns always
skewed in favour of the former.37 Yet they also point out that such a stra-
tegic culture, compounded with the Confucian notions of benevolence,
was to blame for reducing the imperial China’s national character to com-
placency and passive defence that suffocated its seagoing expeditionary
impulses; the latter demonstrated in the early 1400s when its naval fleet
pioneered the world’s open ocean voyages.38
Worse still, argue sea power advocates, the culturally constructed
“blue-ocean blindness” continues to inform the geopolitical psyche of the
Chinese leadership and public today. One of their frequently cited “dis-
turbing evidences” is the China Millennium Monument built in central
Beijing in 2000. It covers an area of 960 square metres to symbolise the
9,600,000 square kilometres of China’s land mass. However, Chinese sea
power pundits complain that there is no graphic or textual representation
of China’s maritime territory and exclusive economic zones (EEZ) under
its jurisdiction, which supposedly amount to over 3,000,000 square kilo-
metres. Equally “disturbing” is the Oriental Land opened in Shanghai in
2001 to serve as an outdoor education park for primary and secondary
students. There, fingers are pointed at the Knowledge Boulevard, where
one can find the name of Christopher Columbus among the world’s great
navigators, but not the Chinese Admiral Zheng He, who led China’s mar-
itime expeditions in the early fifteenth century, decades before Columbus
set off in search of the New World.39 Chinese sea power zealots attribute
36
Qi Qizhang, “Beiyang jiandui fumie de lishi fansi” [historical reflections on the defeat of
the Beiyang Fleet], Bai nian chao [hundred year tide], Iss. 7 (2009), pp. 71–2.
37
Chen Xuesong and Du Kai, “Zhongguo haiquan yishi yu haijun fazhan jianshe” [Chinese
awareness of sea power and growth of Chinese navy], Junshi lishi [military history], No. 4
(2008), p. 68.
38
Li Yaqiang, “Guojia fazhan yu haiyang quanyi” [state development and maritime rights
and interests], Guoji guancha [international review], No. 2 (2013), p. 19; and Yao Guohua,
“Zheng He yu Columbus: liangge ouran jiaose liangzhong biran mengyun” [Zheng He and
Columbus: two accidental roles but two inevitable destinies], Guoxue [Chinese culture], Iss.
5 (2009), pp. 14–15.
39
Meng Xiangqing, “Haiyang guotu duo cun zhengyi zhongguo xu quanmin jiaqiang
haiquan jiaoyu” [maritime territorial disputes: China need to improve its public education on
sea power], Huanqiu shibao [global times], February 28, 2009, p. 8.
220 X. CHEN
China’s discovery only in the 1980s of the relevance of Alfred Mahan’s

concept of sea power to its self-sufficient agrarian tradition and introverted
conservative culture. Believing that the world is entering the “era of the
blue-ocean”, they passionately plead with the Chinese government and
the public to overcome their “cultural barrier” and to help China seize its
“last chance” to gain adequate maritime strength and keep threats to its
safety and growth at bay.40
Alarming and trendy as these arguments may sound, they have been
met head-on with criticisms from Chinese exponents of stronger land
power. While much less hawkish, they are equally vocal and persistent in
the Chinese debate. They denounce sea power pundits’ reading of China’s
modern history for being fundamentally flawed. They contend that the
centrality of whether the ocean or the land in shaping a country’s destiny
is first and foremost decided by its natural and geographic endowments.41
In China’s case, its age-old civilisation originated on a vast land mass com-
prising extensive flat fields suitable for cultivating cereals. As a result, the
agricultural continuity and prosperity have not only sustained Chinese
society, but also established the central position of China’s continental
space in its cultural heritage and development. In the opinion of the land
power enthusiasts, this is best illustrated by the Chinese phrases jiangshan
and heshan, literally translated to mean “river and mountain”, which hold
the connotations of territory, state, power, and interests.42
Another explanation for China’s continental mindset is thought to lie
in the fact that the Middle Kingdom was for centuries cut off from the
outside world by mountain ranges, deserts, dry grassland, Arctic Siberia,
and immense seas. Land power supporters are sympathetic to the opinion
that ancient China’s geographic isolation contributed to its evolving into a
closed society marked by economic autarky, the feudal mode of production,
40
Shi Chunlin, “1990 nian yilai zhongguo jindai haiquan wentin yanjiu pingshu” [review
of research on modern China’s sea rights], Shixue yuekan [journal of historical science], Iss.
1 (2009), pp. 131–2.
41
Zhao Xudong, “Zhongguo yishi yu renleixue yanjiu de sange shijie” [Chinese con-
sciousness and three world from an anthropological perspective], Kaifang shidai [open
times], No. 11 (2012), pp. 115–20; and Ye Zicheng, “Zhongguo de heping fazhan: luquan
de huigui yu fazhan” [China’s peaceful rise: returning and development of land power],
Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi [world economics and politics], Iss. 2 (2007), p. 26.
42
Li Mingchun and Xu Zhiliang, Haiyang longmai: zhongguo haiyang wenhua zonglan
[dragon veins: overview of China’s sea-borne culture], (Beijing: Haiyang Press, 2007),
p. 150.
and a single-minded attachment to land. Yet they quickly point out that it
was China’s very existence in seclusion, self-containedness, and hence slow
pace of transformation that held the key to both the continuity and pro-
gression of its culture and traditions. Similarly, they appreciate the preva-
lent temptation in China since the mid-1980s to either equate the Chinese
“yellow earth civilisation” with stagnation, or compare it negatively with
Western “blue-ocean cultures”. They stress, however, that it was exactly
the imperial China’s uninterrupted and exclusive attention on its conti-
nental space that kept, like an “invisible hand”, the country together since
it became a unified entity in 221BC, despite the endless and often violent
dynasty and reign changes, and social upheavals.43
Insisting on their geographical and cultural logic of China’s conti-
nental outlook to security, Chinese proponents for a land power-cen-
tred approach also challenge the validity of the notion that sea power
ultimately determines the fate of a nation. They maintain that this
Mahanian concept at least requires qualifications to make it plausible.
For example, should the scrutiny be expanded to cover more dimensions
of the human history and society than Alfred Mahan endeavoured, one
may find that land power played a more significant role in the rise or fall
of many great nations than their sea capabilities. Accordingly, Britain’s
victory over Napoleon and its rise to the world’s first great power is
said to have not merely resulted from its unchallengeable might at
sea. More important contributing factors cited by the Chinese arguing
against China’s blue-water drive include Britain’s Glorious Revolution,
Industrial Revolution, and parliamentary democracy, all of which indeed
took place on its homeland. In sum, it was Britain’s comprehensive
national capability that rendered futile Napoleon’s Continental System,
which was designed to disrupt Britain’s exports and ultimately destroy
its economy and social cohesion, and facilitated Britain’s ascendance to
global supremacy.44
Chinese land power supporters continue to argue that even when sea
power did ascend to a status superior to that of land power in the sixteenth
century and thereafter, it did not happen accidently or inevitably, but was
43
Zhao Baomin, “Huigui ouya dalu: Zhongguo da zhanlue zhuanxing” [return to Eurasia:
shift of China’s Grand Strategy], Journal of Xi’an Jiaotong University (Social Sciences)
32:112 (2012), pp. 101–2; and Ye Zicheng, “Zhongguo de heping fazhan,” pp. 26–8.
44
Zhang Haipeng, “Daguo xingshuai de lishi jiaoxun” [historical lessons of the rise and fall
of great powers], Lilun shiye [theoretical horizon], No. 3 (2012), pp. 58–9; and ibid. YE
Zicheng, p. 26.
222 X. CHEN
set off, motivated, and accelerated by social, economic, and technological

changes on land. Moreover, those states which successfully built a mari-
time strategic focus were geographically endowed for the accomplishment
in the first place, such as Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and England.45
Yet even so, the supremacy and triumphs of their respective sea power
often proved transient and were outlasted by the achievements of states
either equipped with strong land-based capabilities, such as China, or reg-
istering a significant continental component in their strategic culture, like
Russia and the USA. To put it differently, human history has recorded
more glories of great continental powers with little maritime strength or
prestige than vice versa.46
In the opinion of those Chinese who subscribe to this line of think-
ing, China’s eventual fall from historical prominence to humiliation in
the mid-nineteenth century was not because of its inferior sea forces, but
the decline of its land power. Like their sea power counterparts, these
Chinese substantiate their ruling by invoking the cases of the Opium and
the Sino-Japanese Wars. They also accept as a fact that British and French
forces broke through China’s maritime gate in the second Opium War. Yet
they argue that had the hundreds of thousands of Manchurian/Chinese
soldiers been capable of combating the 30,000 Anglo-French troops on
land in the aftermath, Chinese modern history would have taken a dif-
ferent course.47 Similarly, at the onset of the 1894–5 Sino-Japanese War,
the Chinese Beiyang Fleet was arguably the then “strongest” navy in East
Asia in terms of tonnage and gun size. Yet it was quickly annihilated by its
rivals of supposedly no match for no other reason than that corrupt and
crumbling late Qing imperial institutions had reduced continental China
to a chaotic mess long before the war—which resulted in the Beiyang Fleet
“fighting a lone battle”.48 The conclusion is thus that the Chinese history
has geopolitically featured the growth, decline, and revival of the land
45
Xu Qiyu, “Deguo jueqi de zhanlue kongjian tuozhan jiqi qishi” [strategic space expan-
sion of rising Germany and revelations], Dangdai shijie [contemporary world], Iss. 12,
2011, p. 56.
46
Ye Zicheng, “Cong da lishiguan kan diyuan zhengzhi” [geopolitics in broader historical
perspective], Xiandai guoji guanxi [contemporary international relations], Iss. 6 (2007b),
p. 2.
47
Ye Zicheng, “Zhongguo de heping fazhan,” p. 28.
48
Jun Hai, “Fanxing jiawu haizhan de shibai” [reflections on how China was defeated in
the first Sino-Japanese War], Chinese Youth Daily, January 28, 2013, p. 2.
power of a great continental country, and that China’s sea power should
always remain subordinate to its land power.49
Chinese land power campaigners maintain that it is even more imper-
ative for China to adhere to the above conclusion as a deliberate strat-
egy and policy in the coming decades. They expound that whether or
not the Hobbesian “state of nature”, i.e., “life is a war of every man
against every man”, still rules international relations, the rise of China is
bound to create anxiety and tension in the world. Yet China’s near- and
long-term security concerns and threats will come mainly from within
its boundaries. In other words, the emerging giant will likely remain
perturbed for a long time by hiccups in its own systemic transitions,
uncertainties as to its reform outcomes, social polarisation and ethnic
unrests fuelled by growing disparities, and pervasive corruption, food
insecurity, resource/energy inefficiency, environmental degradation, and
food-safety crises. There is, however, little societal consensus on solu-
tions to these issues among China’s billion-strong population. Instead,
public option is highly volatile, and moral/ethical values are fast drifting.
A domestic-challenge-centred approach may thus be politically necessary
and effective in raising China’s capabilities in strategic deterrence and
conventional strikes.50
By the same reasoning, Chinese land power supporters maintain that
the “not yet fully fledged” China should make it a serious “taboo” to take
on a self-important attitude internationally and project itself as a challenge
to the existent global order. Also, should China settle for this rationale,
it needs to be particularly careful with its “blue-water” aspirations and
strategies. For any aggressive shift away from its continental orientation
may risk further inflaming the “threat” rhetoric, or even driving worried
49
Peng Nian, “Zhongguo de zhanlue jueze haiquan or luquan” [China at a strategic cross-
road: sea power or land power], Qiaobao [The China Press], August 23, 2012, p. A6; and Ye
Zicheng, “Zhongguo haiquan bixu congshu yu luquan” [China’s sea power must be subor-
dinate to its land power], Guoji xianqu daobao [international herald leader], Iss. 14 (2007c),
p. 15.
50
Yuan Peng, “Zhongguo zhenzheng de tiaozhan zai nail” [where do real challenges fac-
ing China lie], People’s Daily Overseas Edition, July 31, 2012, p. 1; Zha Daojiong, “Woguo
nengyuan tiaozhan de guoji guanlian” [the relevance of international factors in China’s
energy challenges], Zhongguo kexue bao [China science daily], May 21, 2012, p. B3; and Chu
Shulong, “Shijie de bianhua he zhongguo guojia anquan” [changes in the world and China’s
national security], Guoji zhengzhi yanjiu jikan [international politics quarterly], Iss. 4
(2009), p. 118.
224 X. CHEN
countries into alliances against China. That scenario will surely cancel out
China’s efforts to secure a “harmonious world” for its “peaceful rise”.51
The 2008 global financial crisis and attendant drastic fall in world
demand for made-in-China commodities seem to have given new ammu-
nitions to Chinese land power advocates. Taking note of the shifting
Chinese official discourse and public opinion on the development para-
digm, they anticipate China steadily rebalancing its economy away from
export-dependent and investment-driven to consumption-led growth.
This should in turn be expected to at least allay the urgency insisted by
the sea power group to extend China’s maritime influence and capabilities
from its coasts to the open ocean. It should also lend legitimacy to the pro
land power argument that rather than further stretching China’s already
starkly limited resources for a significant naval expansion and consequently
risking to derail its long-term development agenda, the emerging giant
ought to continue relying on the international community and existing
maritime powers for the safety and security of international transportation
arteries on the high seas.52
China is, of course, neither land-locked, nor entirely coastal. It is there-
fore not surprising that the sea- and land power camps both attract a plu-
rality of participants offering a variety of opinions on what capability-based
approach China should take to fend off security risks. In general, however,
their assorted arguments signify either hawkish or moderate “threat to
China” perceptions and policy preferences. With tensions rising over terri-
torial disputes in the seas surrounding China, however, Chinese land power
believers seem speaking more on the necessity of factoring sea power, and
for that matter air, space, and cyberspace, power into China’s geopoliti-
cal and geoeconomic equations. Yet their evolving representations of a
“continental concept with Chinese characteristics” invariably emphasise
its “break-away” from the conventional land-based doctrine crystallised
in the nineteenth century from great powers’ “violent conquests of the
World Island”, or the “Eurasian Heartland”, for global domination.53 The
51
Peng Nian, op. cit., p. A6; and Lu Weipeng and Zhang Yin, “Lishi yu dangxia: Zhongguo
de diyuan zhengzhi zhanglue xuanze” [history and the present: China’s geostrategic
choices], Xianning xuyuan bao [journal of Xianing University] 29:1 (2009), pp. 8–9.
52
Zhao Kejin, “Zhongguo jueqi yu duiwai zhanlue tiaozheng” [China’s rise and its foreign
strategic readjustment], Shehui kexue [journal of social sciences], Iss. 9 (2010), pp. 4–6.
53
Wu Xiaowu, “Han Huhai tan xibu bianjiang kaifa yu zhili” [Prof Han Yuxi talking about
the development and management of China’s west frontier], Shanghai guozi [capital
Shanghai], No. 4 (2011), pp. 101–2; and YE Zicheng, “Ouya diyuan zhengzhi xin bianhua
reconceptualised notion of land power is thus consistent with the argu-

ment that China should tilt its strategic planning in favour of addressing
the myriad issues in its “back alleys and rural fields” rather than “threats”
in the Pacific or other strategically critical regions.54
In a similar manner, more and more sea power enthusiasts are also
expressing concerns over the scenario of China’s maritime capabilities
being built on and by an “ever wealthier, but increasingly discontent and
fragmented Chinese society”.55 Yet they cite domestic issues largely to fur-
ther accentuate the alleged “urgency” for China to establish a strong naval
power and maritime presence in the Asia-Pacific region and across the
world. Comprehensive sea power construction, as they put it bluntly, not
merely adds momentum to China’s economic growth in terms of jobs,
resources and transport.56 It would more importantly dissuade China’s
adversaries from attempting to exploit its internal vulnerabilities to chal-
lenge and even undermine its core interests. Adequate insulation from
external threats and pressures would thus allow China to better focus on
its home front.57
Maritime Disputes: Among Foes or Partners?

Debates over “threats” and “deterrence” notwithstanding, a public
consensus seems to be forming in China that, with recurring territorial
feuds and diplomatic spats in the seas around China, the most critical
ji zhongguo de jihui yu tiaozhan” [latest changes in Eurasian geopolitics and challenges and
opportunities for China], Xiandai guoji guanxi [contemporary international relations], Iss.
5 (2008), p. 11.
54
Global Times Editorial, “Zhongguo jueqi zhu zhendi yixiang guonei shijing tianjia” [the
main battlefield of China’s rise has shifted to back allies and rural fields at home], October
24, 2012, p. 14.
55
Shi Yinhong, “Gaige xiaoli ruohua de zhongguo mianlin lishi tiaoshi nengle tiaozhan”
[diminishing effectiveness of reform challenges China’s capability to adapt to changing
times], Zhongguo yu shijie guancha [China and world affairs], Iss. 3–4 (2012), accessible at
http://www.ccwe.org.cn/ccwenew/alias/《中国与世界观察》2012年三四合期_1140.
html.
56
Joseph Y. S. Cheng and Stefania Paladini, “Battle Ready? Developing a Blue-water Navy:
China’s Strategic Dilemma” in Joseph Y. S. Cheng, ed., China: A New Stage of Development
for an Emerging Superpower (Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2012),
pp. 263–4.
57
Liu Zhongmin, “Zhongguo haiquan fazhan de san da siwei wuqu” [three wrong opin-
ions about the build-up of China’s sea power], Dongfang zaobao [oriental morning post],
April 30, 2010, p. A16.
226 X. CHEN
and explosive security flashpoints for the country presently, and in the
years to come, lie in the Asian waters. The Chinese generally acknowledge
that complex historical burdens heavily impede satisfactory all-party reso-
lutions of many maritime boundary and EEZ disputes involving China.
Yet public opinion seems increasingly concerned that ever more frequent
maritime encounters in the region are fuelling belligerence in the Western
Pacific. This in turn contributes to the likelihood of bilateral disputes or
collisions spiralling into major regional or even international political
and/or military crises.
A common argument arising from Chinese mainstream and social
media networks maintains that the recent “disturbing” development
in the Yellow, East and South China Seas is the result of an “aggres-
sive push” by China’s littoral neighbours to secure exclusive access to
maritime resources and energy deposits in those waters. The contending
claims by these countries for continental shelves and EEZs are widely
seen in China as a “new round of blue enclosure movement and mari-
time boundary delineation”, which are “seriously infringing” on China’s
territorial sovereignty and resource/property rights.58 In that regard,
the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is deemed at fault
as well. For its “non-specific” provisions have “incentivised” disputing
claimant countries to “confront China with legal assertions and military
demonstrations”.59 Meanwhile, the region-wide surge of popular nation-
alism has “turned” the acquisition of greater development space and
resources into an issue of national honour and dignity for the disputing
states. This has progressively “narrowed” the “manoeuvring space” for
political settlements of the disputes through negotiations, conciliation,
and/or compromises.60
Worse still, “disruptions” inflicted by maritime competition on the
ever more interdependent region have allegedly resulted in the littoral
nations “wooing extra-regional players and capital” for support in their
58
Xue Guifang, “Wo ying zhiding weihu haiyang quanyi quanfangwei zhanlue” [China
should develop a comprehensive strategy to safeguard its maritime rights], Jingji cankao
[economic information], September 26, 2012, p. 6.
59
Wang Shan, “Guoji haiquan boyi fengqi yunyong” [surging rivalries in international sea
power], Shishi baogao [current affairs report], Iss. 6 (2012), p. 66.
60
Liu Xinhua, “Xi taipingyang diqu de haiyang anquan xingshi yu zhongguo de diquxing
haiquan” [maritime security in the Western Pacific and China’s regional Sea power],
Taipingyang xuebao [Pacific journal] 19:2 (2011), p. 90.
a crimonious tit-for-tat contests with China.61 Many Chinese find it “alarm-

ing” that in the South China Sea alone “more than 200 Western oil com-
panies” have been “contracted” by Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Indonesia, and Brunei, and between them “over 1,380 wells” have been
drilled with a crude oil yield of “50 million tonnes” per annum. China, on
the other hand, “has not extracted a single drop of oil” in the South China
Sea, even though it “owns” much of the region.62
The smaller Southeast Asian maritime rivals are still viewed in China
largely as “partners in competition”,63 or “suspicious and guarded
partners”,64 or “post-honeymoon partners” with divergent national reali-
ties, varied domestic concerns, and contending strategic agendas and inter-
ests.65 Yet there seems a growing public frustration in China with some of
them for their having crossed many of China’s “red lines” when “trying to
create faits accomplis over their territorial encroachments” in the disputed
waters.66 The littoral states are also blamed for “ganging up on Beijing”
through “multilateralising bilateral maritime disputes” in ASEAN, APEC,
the East Asia Summit, and the United Nations.67 Their “surging” defence
61
Wang Shengyun and Zhang Yaoguang, “Nanhai diyuan zhengzhi tezheng ji zhongguo
hanhai diyuan zhanlue” [geopolitical features of the South China Sea and China’s geostrat-
egy], Dongnaya zongheng [around Southeast Asia], Iss. 1 (2012), p. 68.
62
Yao Dongqin, “Nanhai baozao: Shiqu nanhai jiu xiangdangyu shiqu zhongguo youqi
ziyuan de sanfenzhiyi” [treasures in the South China Sea: losing the South China Sea means
losing one third of China’s total oil and gas reserves], Zhongguo jingji zhoukan [China eco-
nomic weekly], Iss. 21 (2012), pp. 26–7.
63
Li Xiaojun, “Shixi meiguo dui zhongguo zai dongnanya liliang jueqi de anquan pinggu”
[American security assessment of China’s rising power in Southeast Asia], Dongnanya yanjiu
[Southeast Asian studies], Iss. 3 (2012), p. 41.
64
Zhang Yunling, “Bawu zhoubian huanjing bianhua de daju” [grasping the new changes
in the surrounding environment], Guoji jingji pinglun [international economic review], Iss.
1 (2012), pp. 11–2.
65
Zhang Xuegang, “Zhongguo-dongmeng guanxi xuyao yongxin jingying” [China-
ASEAN relationship should be attentively managed], People’s Daily Overseas Edition, May
11, 2012, p. 5.
66
Jia Xudong, “The Philippines zai nanhai wenti shang de ‘qi zong zui’” [“seven crimes”
committed by the Philippines in the South China Sea], People’s Daily Overseas Edition, June
29, 2013, p. 1; and Yang Yi, “Zhoubian huanjing kunju yu anquan zhengce beilun” [para-
dox of China’s security dilemma and policy], Shijie zhishi [world affairs], Iss. 1 (2012), p. 30.
67
Zhang Zhe, “The Philippines cheng lianheguo yi zhaoshou zhongcai nanhai zheng-
duan” [the Philippines claims UN tribunal to start arbitration on South China Sea disputes],
Dongfang zaobao [oriental morning post], July 18, 2013, p. A12; and John D Ciorciari and
Jessica Chen Weiss, “The Sino-Vietnamese Standoff in the South China Sea,” Georgetown
Journal of International Affairs 13:1 (2012), p. 64.
228 X. CHEN
budgets and “drastically upgraded” military capabilities are also broadly

feared to risk “resurrecting the Cold War” in the region.68 Their “fre-
quent joint military exercises with regional and extra-regional powers” in
the troubled waters are meanwhile typically interpreted as “basking-in-
reflected-glory challenges” to Beijing amid the heated territorial standoff
in the South China Sea.69 Yet in comparison, prevalent Chinese assump-
tions of partial/quasi-military alliances being formed off their coast have
brought Japan, India, and the USA into a much more critical spotlight in
China.
A recent opinion poll in China reveals that the Chinese public approval
rate for Japan/Japanese has dropped to a new low at less than 10%.70 The
worsening of the lingering Chinese resentment towards Japan is immedi-
ately triggered by the latter’s 2011 “campaign to nationalise” the bitterly-
contended Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands,71 its “corresponding hype” for a
“normal statehood with a normal defence force”,72 and the ensuing escala-
tion of physical encounters and confrontations between the two countries
in the East China Sea.73 Yet the Chinese are equally “inflamed” by Japan’s
“expanding its strategic depth” in the South China Sea and “making com-
mon cause” with China’s rival claimant countries in that region.74 Stories
about Japan’s “teaming up” with ASEAN claimant states to “dissuade”
them from “cutting individual deals” with Beijing, to “leverage” on their
tensions with China for its own claim over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands,
68
Zhao Yang, “Dongnanya xiang zai ‘xin lengzhang’” [Southeast Asia appears engaged in
a “new Cold War], Nanfang ribao [Nanfang daily], May 21, 2012, p. A13.
69
Zhang Haiwen, “Dui dangqian nanhai jushi de kanfa” [on the current situation in the
South China Sea], Shijie zhishi [world affairs], Iss. 1 (2012), p. 29.
70
Shang Xi, “Qian zhuri dashi yu zhongri huigui diyue yuandian” [former Chinese ambas-
sador to Japan appealing for the two countries to revisit the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and
Friendship], Jinghua shibao [Beijing times], August 13, 2013, p. 14.
71
Li Suhua, “Diaoyudao jushi zouxiang dui zhong ri mingzhong ganqing de yingxiang”
[development of tensions over Diaoyu Islands and impacts on Chinese and Japanese feelings
towards each other], Tansuo yu zhengming [exploration and free views], Iss. 1 (2013), p. 91.
72
Qiu Jing, “Diaoyudao wenti yu riben zhengzhi zhong de ruogan wenti” [Diaoyu Islands
dispute and Japanese politics], Waijiao guancha [foreign affairs review], Iss. 3 (2013),
pp. 373–81.
73
Li Yaqing, “Riben fangwei baipishu xianbai qiangying: zhongguo chiqi ‘daodayipa’
hanguo nuzhi ‘mingwanbuhua’” [Japan’s defence white paper hyping hard-line stance:
China rebuking it as “bogus” and Korea denouncing it as “thickheaded”], Nanning wanbao
[Nanning evening news], July 10, 2013, p. 22.
74
Sun Xiuping et al, “Riben pinfan tiaobo dongmeng guojia” [Japan repeatedly stirs up
tensions between ASEAN and China], Huanqiu shibao [global times], July 2, 2013, p. 6.
and to “establish a permanent presence in the resource-rich and strategi-

cally critical” South China Sea, are gaining massive political, academic and
social media traction in China.75 All this readily feeds the popular Chinese
conviction and discourse that in its race for regional maritime supremacy
and political prowess, Japan is a convenient and willing “frontline state” in
the international “China-containment coalition”.76
Another “eager participant” in the “coalition” commonly identified by
the Chinese is India. The Chinese criticism of India, while not necessar-
ily as overwhelming as in the case of Japan, focuses on its extending the
“dragon-elephant rivalry” from the Indian Ocean into the South China
Sea.77 To a certain extent, the Chinese public seems able to empathise with
India’s entrenched aspiration and continued endeavours to make itself
“count for a great deal” and its “influence felt” in the world as envisioned
by Prime Minister Nehru.78 There are even candid pleas, made in Chinese
academic writings, policy position papers, and online blog discussions,
to the Chinese public for better understanding of Indian elites’ “post-
colonial inferiority complex” and their “compulsive urge to keep up with
the Joneses”, or China, in their pursuit of India’s great power status.79
Yet while there may exist in China some open, but guarded, acknowl-
edgement of the strategically vital role of the Indian Ocean in India’s rise,
there does not seem any publicly expressed appreciation or appetite for
Indians supposedly taking the Ocean as “India’s Ocean”.80 In fact, popular
Chinese misgivings about India are being exacerbated by its alleged sub-
scription to the “American-conceived allegation” of China “stringing up a
75
Feng Shanzhi, “Chashou nanhai, riben yizai kaipi duihua ‘dier zhanchang’” [Japan
interfering in South China Sea disputes to open a “second front” against China], Feng
Shanzhi Blog, January 15, 2013, http://fengshanzhi.blogchina.com/1406001.html.
76
Guan Quan, “Zhongguo jueqi yaoguo ‘riben guan’” [China’s rise must pass the “Japan
barrier”], Renmin luntan xueshu qianyan [people’s tribune: academic frontier], Iss. 6
(2013), p. 75.
77
Su Liang, “Yindu xiang zai nanzhongguohai gan shenme” [what is India trying to do in
the South China Sea], Qingnian cankao [youth reference], July 31, 2013, p. 3.
78
Su Xiaozhi, “Dui cangqian yindu nanhai zhengce de zhanlue jiexi ji qianjing zhanwang”
[strategic analysis and forecast of India’s South China Sea policy], Guoji luntan [interna-
tional forum], Iss. 1 (2013), p. 67.
79
Yang Xiaoping, “Chaoyue ‘zhongguo misi’ suzao yong yin xiangchu zhidao” [going
beyond the “China myth” and shaping ways for China and India to get along well with each
other], Liaowang zhoukan [outlook weekly], Iss. 6 (2013), p. 81.
80
Liu Hanzhen, “‘Waiyuan’ chengqi yindu haiyang ‘meng’” [“foreign aid” boosts India’s
sea power dream], Guangzhou ribao [Guangzhou daily], August 18, 2013, p. A8.
230 X. CHEN
chain of pearls”, or ports, in the Indian Ocean, and its subsequently “join-
ing forces with the US and Japan to break the Chinese encirclement”.81
India’s “taking on China” in the Indian Ocean is widely represented in
Chinese public discussions as an effort to “thwart” Beijing’s “two-ocean”
strategy for alleviating the “Malacca dilemma”.82 Against this backdrop,
India’s “growing military ties” with some claimant countries in the South
China Sea and its “increasing involvement” in their development projects
in the disputed waters are categorised as intended to “further muddy” the
South China Sea and hence gain “political mileage” in building its own
“two-ocean”, or “Indo-Pacific”, capacities against the “China threat”.83
As may be expected, however, the “chief culprit looming behind all the
above tensions in the trouble Asian waters”, believed by many in China,
is the USA.84 The Chinese public seems easily convinced by the argument
that with China at the vanguard of the “eastward shift” of the world’s geo-
economic and geopolitical centre of gravity, the USA cannot but become
increasingly concerned about its own strategic primacy and dominance in
Asia. Accordingly, the US “strategic pivot” has been launched to “at least
delay” China’s rise, particularly in its out-reaching sea power and blue-
water capabilities.85
Chinese US watchers are most “alerted” over the fact that Washington’s
“Western Pacific/East Asia–Indian Ocean/South Asia security arc”, made
public in 2012, “takes in” all the maritime domains and passages that
are “crucially imperative” for China’s continued economic growth and
national security.86 They are convinced that strategic arrangements and
military actions within the “arc” will pose serious challenges to Beijing’s
81
Yang Zhen, Lun hou lengzhan shidai de haiquan [on sea power in the post-Cold War
era], Doctoral Dissertation (Shanghai: Fudan University, 2012), pp. 183–4.
82
Wang Peng, “Gwadar gang youzhuyu huangjie ‘maliujia kunju’” [Gwadar Port may help
ease the “Malacca Dilemma”], Zhongguo qingnian bao [China youth daily], March 1, 2013,
p. 9.
83
Hu Juan, “India jieru nanhai wenti de yuanyi he jucuo” [India’s involvement in the
South China Sea: motivations and approaches], Dongnanya nanya yanjiu [Southeast and
South Asian studies], Iss. 2 (2013), p. 22.
84
Yuan Weihua, “Zhongguo shi xiuzhengzhuyi guojia ma?” [Is China a revisionist coun-
try?], Guoji Zhanwang [global review], Iss. 6 (2012), p. 58.
85
Han Xudong, “Toushi meiguo ‘xin sanxian’ junshi zhanlue” [an examination of the US
“new three island chains” strategy], Lingdao wencui [leaders digest], Iss. 17 (2012), p. 51;
and Yang Zhen, op. cit., p. 184.
86
Ma Yao, “Meiguo ‘zhuanxiang yatai’ luxiantu” [“road map” of the US pivot], Dongfang
zaobao [oriental morning post], March 28, 2012, p. A18.
near- and long-term domestic and regional agendas.87 They are particu-
larly worried that the operation of the “arc” will “significantly inflate”
China’s sea power cost for settling the Taiwan issue.88 Indeed, while
Taiwan’s political status impacts on both China’s national dignity and its
ability to enter the Pacific and command the seas around its coast, Beijing
should not want to be pushed into a corner where it has no other choice
but to pay the “at-all-costs” that it has repeatedly pledged to safeguard its
“one-China bottom line”.89
Chinese US watchers do take heed of international discussions on
whether the USA has the fiscal wherewithal to deliver its promised Asia
“pivot”. Yet they argue that America’s “anaemic” economic recovery at
home and continued involvement in other regions will only motivate it to
step up interactions with its allies and partners along the “arc” for on-the-
ground implementation of its “pivot” and “rebalancing-out of China”.90
They maintain that the evolving complex security network of US-led bilat-
eral, trilateral, multilateral, and “NATO-like” alliances and partnerships
across the “Western Pacific–Indian Ocean” region will in turn “tighten
and extend the Island-Chain blockage” against China.91
In the South China Sea, meanwhile, greater US diplomatic involvement
and naval presence are reportedly helping “reshape” Asia’s power struc-
ture in which regional economic interdependence and military/security
87
Shi Chunlin and Li Xiuying, “Meiguo daolian fengsuo jiqi dui woguo haishang anquan
de yingxiang” [the impact of the US Island Chain blockage on China’s access to the sea],
Shijie dili yanjiu [world regional studies], Iss. 2 (2013), p. 4.
88
Liu Zhongmin, “Zhongmei guanxi zhong de haiquan wenti: xianshi yu duice” [sea-
power issue in Sino-US relations: reality and responses], Dongfang zaobao [oriental morning
post], August 6, 2012, p. A11.
89
Zhang Wenmu, “‘Tiantang henyuan, zhongguo que henjin’: zhongguo yu zhoubian
guojia he diqu de diyuan zhengzhi hudong guiliu he tedian” [“heaven is far away while
China is nearby: patterns and features of geopolitical interactions between China and neigh-
bouring countries], Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi [world economics and politics], Iss. 1 (2013),
pp. 17–8; and Xie Yu, “Dui guojia shangwei tongyi teshu qingkuang xia liangan zhengzhi
guanxi de jidian sikao” [some thoughts on the cross-Strait political relations under the special
circumstances before reunification], Tongyi luntan [reunification forum], Iss. 3 (2013),
p. 10.
90
Yu Zhengliang, “Meiguo yatai zai pingheng zhanlue de shiheng” [the imbalance of US
strategy to rebalance towards Asia], Guoji guanxi yanjiu [journal of international relations],
Iss. 2 (2013), p. 7.
91
Wu Xinbo, “Lun aobama zhengfu de yatai zhanlue” [on the Asia-Pacific strategy of the
Obama government], Guoji wenti yanjiu [international studies], Iss. 2 (2012), pp. 71–3.
232 X. CHEN
partnership are rapidly “separated” from each other.92 As a result, more

“cracks” are appearing in the already suspicion-shrouded and conflict-
affected “united front” of China and the “developing” littoral nations in
ASEAN.93 Worse yet, “extra-regional interventions” are prompting inter-
state relationships in the South China Sea to slip into a “great divide” with
China on one side and “all the rest” on the other.94
It is commonly accepted as a fact in China that the US and the Chinese
economies have become so intertwined that “each has a lot of the other
in itself”.95 Yet it is also widely believed that “structural conflicts” between
a “declining hegemon” and a “rising power” of different political ide-
ologies, systems and values will lock the Sino-US relationship for a long
time in a contending rather than cooperative mode in which “collisions”
of their geopolitical and geoeconomic interests will inevitably increase.96
In this context, it is only “natural” and “logical”, maintain Chinese US
watchers, for America to “hype” Asian countries’ maritime “wrestles”
against China.97 They do remind the public, though, that the US advocacy
of “smart power” diplomacy will likely result in its “measured” encourage-
ment and support for the claimant states to stand firm in their territorial
and resource disputes with China. Thus while long-term, comprehensive
settlements of overlapping sovereignty claims may not be on the “pivot”
agenda, the USA will not likely “allow” tensions in the Asian waters to
escalate into a “hot” or “cold” war with China, either.98
As for Japan, India and competing Southeast Asian claimant countries,
the Chinese public seems increasingly convinced that they are China’s
92
Jin Yongming, “Zhongguo haiyang anquan zhanlue yanjiu” [on China’s maritime secu-
rity strategy], Guoji zhanwang [global review], Iss. 4 (2012), p. 4.
93
Lu Shiwei, “Xin shiqi zhongguo waijiao de ‘bian’ yu ‘bubian’” [Chinese diplomacy in
the new era: what has “changed” and what has not], Guoji wenti yanjiu [international stud-
ies], Iss. 3 (2013), p. 28.
94
Zhang Haiwen, “Dui dangqian nanhai jushi de kanfa,” p. 29.
95
Li Jingtian, “Jiji jianshe zhongmei xinxing daguo guanxi” [actively building a new type
of major power relationship between China and the USA], Xuexi shibao [study times], June
24, 2013, p. 1.
96
Yan Xuetong, Inertia of History: China and the World in the Next Ten Years (Beijing:
Zhongxin Press, 2013), pp. XIV–XV.
97
Yang Yi, 2012, p. 30; and Yan Xuetong, “Cong nanhai wenti shuodao zhongguo waijiao
tiaozheng” [issues in the South China Sea and China’s diplomatic adjustment], Shijie zhishi
[world affairs], Iss. 1 (2012), p. 33.
98
Shi Yinhong, “Nanhai zhengyi yu zhongguo zhanlue” [South China Sea disputes and
China’s strategy], Zi guang ge [hall of purple light], Iss. 9 (2012), p. 43.
“superficial partners of varying degrees at best”, chasing mainly “trade

concessions and economic benefits” from the emerging-market giant next
door.99 This prevalent opinion is accompanied by an increasingly uneasy
anticipation that the relations of these countries with China will follow in
the “Mongolian pattern”, i.e., relying on Beijing for economic growth,
but looking to Washington and other extra-regional powerful countries
or institutional players for security assurance and structural counterbal-
ance to China.100 This situation will only get worse, warn hawkish Chinese
mainstream and social media opinion leaders, as these countries will likely
“redouble their provocative/manipulative” practices in the Asian waters
to attract greater and broader diplomatic and security support for their
efforts to “maximise” territorial concessions from China “before it grows
too strong”.101 In the same breath, however, these policy elites also per-
suasively insist that the way the dynamics of maritime relations between
China and the USA-and-all-the-rest evolve will not be decided merely by
how many cards the latter hold, but more importantly by the way China
responds to the game.102 Yet it is exactly about China’s response that
hawkish and moderate Chinese opinion leaders have been spinning their
competing political narratives to sway public perceptions.
Crisis Management: Through Aircraft Carriers?

In Chinese internal debates over maritime issues in the South China Sea,
there are increasing voices forcefully claiming that China has long been a
“total failure” in the “international public opinion warfare” on the ter-
ritorial disputes in the region. They argue that when China was com-
pletely “absorbed in its discursive construction of peaceful rise”, its littoral
neighbours were busy creating “discursive spaces” on the world stage for
99
Zheng Yangpeng, “Zhongguo ‘bu jiemeng’ zhengce sikao” [reconsideration of China’s
“non-alliance” policy], Xuexi zhi you [friends of learning], Iss. 4 (2013), p. 22.
100
Yu Zhengliang, “Dongya zhixu chongzu de tedian jiqi tiaozhan” [restructuring of East
Asian regional order: features and challenges], Guoji zhanwang (global review), Iss. 1
(2012), p. 3.
101
Wang Fan and Ling Shengli, “Zhongguo de waijiao zhengce bian ying le ma?” [Is
China’s diplomacy becoming harsher?], Dangdai shijie [contemporary world], Iss. 3 (2013),
p. 24; and Li Yuhai, “Nanhai zhanlue xin xiwei” [new strategic concept about the South
China Sea], 21st shiji jingji baodao [21st century business herald], May 26l, 2012, p. 18.
102
Zheng Yongnian, “Zhongmei guanxi he shijie zhixu” [Sino-US relations and the world
order], Lianhe zaobao [united morning news], October 8l, 2013, p. 11.
234 X. CHEN
their territorial claims. By the time disputes and tensions surfaced in the
sea, an “all-on-one-side world opinion landscape” had already taken shape
in which China was “the only alienated other”. The “prescribed isola-
tion” has since rendered China both “politically impotent” in asserting its
positions in disputes and “legally ineffective” in defending its jurisdiction
over the islands. Today, while China is wallowing in “self-pity”, feeling
wronged because it “has not done anything” with or about the islands,
world public opinion still “overwhelmingly condemns its aggressiveness”
in the South China Sea.103 Meanwhile, the prevalent “hostile-to-China
sentiment” continues to “embolden” other claimant countries to “test”
Beijing’s patience and strategy in Asia’s troubled waters.104
In answering how China should “regain the initiative” in the surround-
ing seas, hawkish/realist Chinese commentators make frequent references
to Kant’s discussion on “perpetual peace” to point out the “fundamentally
conflictual relationship” between China and those nations that bear heavily
on the “nature” and “direction” of the “Western-oriented” international
system and global governance. They focus their critical lens especially on
the “path” leading to the ideal state of affairs that Kant projected for
the world to aspire to. They echo the argument raging in some Western
scholarly circles that the prevailing interpretation of Kant’s vision is “mis-
leading” because it is based on a “selective reading” of his Toward a
Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch. They maintain that a scrutiny of
the full text and a wider reading of his works would most certainly refocus
the reader’s attention more on “war” as the “pathway” to perpetual peace
than on “moral perfection of the humankind”, or “Lockean rivalry”, as
acclaimed by pundits of “Kantian cosmopolitanism”.105
103
Zheng Yongnian, “Zhongguo ruhe zai nanzhongguohai bian ‘beidong’ wei ‘zhudong’”
[how China changes its “passive” to “proactive” stance in dealing with the South China Sea
disputes], Lianhe zaobao [united morning news], July 12, 2011, Section 1, p. 11.
104
Dai Xu, “‘Bing bandu keji’: nanhai zhanlue wanyanshu” [“attacking the enemy before
it is fully prepared”: a petition for changing the South China Sea strategy], Renmin luntan
xueshu qianyan [people’s tribune: academic frontier], Iss. 7 (2012), p. 14; and Zhuang
Qinghong, “Miandui nanhai xin dongjing zhongguo buzai ‘yi jing zhi dong’” [China will
change its “no action” tactic in dealing with new happenings in the South China Sea],
Qingnian cankao [youth reference], June 27, 2012, p. A6.
105
Wang Mingjin, “Dongfang zhihui zhong de shijie zhuyi: Zhongguo zhuiqiu shenmey-
ang de xinxing daguo guanxi” [Cosmopolitanism in Oriental Wisdom: On the New Great
Power Relationship China Pursues], Renmin luntan-xueshu qianyan [people’s tribune-aca-
demic frontiers], Iss. 12 (2013), p. 68; and Sheng Hong, “Rujia de waijiao yuanze jiqi dan-
Security-hawkish Chinese then quickly move their discussions on to

another widely held opinion that Kant’s thesis foreshadowed the “demo-
cratic peace” theory, or the absence of armed conflicts between democ-
racies. If that is the case, they maintain, perpetual peace has not only
prescribed “wars” as a means for its accomplishment, but also “set the
scene” for pre-emptive strikes on or humanitarian interventions in “failed
states”, “rogue nations”, and “ineffective democracies”.106 They continue
to argue that by being kept a privilege for a select few, Kant’s “cosmo-
politan ideal” also necessitates a “world power” to both lead the mission
of “coercive civil law enforcement” against challengers from outside the
“great league” of democracies, and provide the first line of defence when
its peace is deemed threatened.107
Realist-minded Chinese policy elites make no secret that they see the
USA as the leader of the “democratic family” in the post-Cold War era
as well as the unipolar hegemon “on the offensive” and “with almost
unchecked power”.108 They are also unequivocal that irrespective of eco-
nomic globalisation and interdependence, the political and cultural DNA
innate in the logic of perpetual peace continues to define as “incompat-
ible” rising China’s regime type, political system, ideological orientation,
strategic interests, and cultural values, and hence a Hobbesian foe to be
contained.109 Citing major regional crises involving China in recent years,
they conclude that maritime tensions in post-Cold War Asia are primarily
rooted in “conflicting national interests” and “contending strategic cal-
culations”, and thus have the qualities of “traditional” threats.110 They
gdai yiyi” [Confucian diplomatic principles and their implications for today], Wenhua
zongheng [Beijing cultural review], Iss. 4 (2012), p. 40.
106
Yang Zhen, Lun hou lengzhan shidai de haiquan, p. 140.
107
Xu Xiaochun and Ge Xin, “Cong ‘mingzhu’ waijiao shijiao dui ‘minzhu hepinglun’ de
zai shinshi” [revisiting the “democratic peace theory” from the perspective of “democratic”
diplomacy], Taipingyang xuebao [Pacific journal], No. 6 (2012), p. 40; and Yue Hanjing,
“Xin shiji yilai meiguo dui yiliang de zhengce yanjiu” [US Iran policy since the new century],
Alabo shijie yanjiu [Arab world studies], No. 5 (2012), p. 100.
108
Lu Shiwei, “Xin yilun ‘zhongguo weixie lun’: jiexi yu yingdui” [new round of “China
threat”: analysis and response], Zhongguo tese shehui zhuyi yanjiu [studies on socialism with
Chinese characteristics], Iss. 3 (2013b), p. 45.
109
Yan Xuetong and Qi Haixia, “Zhongmei jingzheng qianjing: Jia pengyou er fei xin
lengzhan” [prospects of Sino-US rivalry: fake friends not new Cold War], Guoji zhengzhi
kexue [international political science], Iss. 3 (2012), p. 16.
110
Zhang Mingzhi, “Cong ‘zhongguo weixielun’ dao ‘zhongguo zerenlun’: Xifang leng-
zhan siwei dish ixia de zhongguo fazhang anquzn” [from “China threat” to “China respon-
236 X. CHEN
expect the USA and her Kantian “allies” and Lockean “partners” across
the “democratic arc” to remain in sharp-edged competitions with China
for control over strategic waterways and natural resource in the surround-
ing seas.111 Their forecast thus paints a gloomy picture of increasing naval
muscle flexing, tensions and collisions in the region.
Security-hawkish Chinese acknowledge that the high risk of a miscal-
culation or accident to spark a deadly exchange of fire or a major crisis in
the Asian waters necessitates effective political mechanisms to de-escalate
incidents and defuse tensions. Yet they are very sceptical about the efficacy
of the “ever thickening alphabet soup” of global and regional fora and
institutions in undertaking this responsibility.112 They are also doubtful
that close economic ties, strong trade/business links, robust investment/
capital flows, and unilateral preferential tariff arrangements offered by
Beijing to its littoral neighbours will be able to crowd out “structural con-
flicts” and “strategic distrust” between China and the US-led “democratic
community”.113 Some realist-minded Chinese commentators even insinu-
ate that Deng Xiaoping’s “setting aside territorial disputes and engaging
in joint resource exploitation” was wishful thinking at best. For “not only
has none of the contending littoral neighbours answered the appeal in
the past 30 years, but they have seized the opportunity of China’s one-
sided calling off the disputes to encroach on her maritime territory”.114
The lesson here for China, argue hawkish Chinese, is that while ten-
sion/crisis management should aim at “turning adversaries into friends”
through “reasonable give and restrained take”, it is “naïve, idiotic, and
of serious consequences to completely remove military involvement from
the equation”.115 In their opinion, the geopolitical reality in Asia affords
sibility”: Western Cold-War mentality and China’s development security], Forum of World
Economics and Politics, No. 3 (2012), p. 10.
111
Yu Zhengliang, Dongya zhixu chongzu de tedian,” p. 11.
112
Yan Xuetong, “‘Yi chao duo qiang’ kaishi xiang ‘liang chao duo qiang’ yanbian” [shift-
ing from “one superpower and several major powers” to “two superpowers and several major
powers”], Huanqiu shibao [global times], December 30, 2011, p. 14.
113
Li Shaofei and Yang Shilong, “Yan Xuetong: jiejue nanhai zhengduan ke jiejian shanghe
jingyan” [the experience of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation may shed light on the
settlement of the South China Sea disputes], Liaowang [outlook weekly], Iss. 25 (2011),
p. 61.
114
Liu Mengxiong, “Baowei hanquan yao you xin siwei xin celue” [China needs new con-
cepts and strategies for protecting its sea power], Wen Wei Po, February 19, 2013, p. A17.
115
Chen Liangfei and Zhang Wenmu, “Zhongguo ying jingying yazhou, jianchi diqu
shoucheng” [China should remain focused on regional affairs in Asia], Dongfang zaobao
China few other choices but to speed up its naval modernisation so as to

“effectively manage rising maritime tensions and confidently stand by its
territorial claims”.116
Elaborating on their hawkish security outlook, Chinese realists loudly
advertise “military, policing and diplomatic functions and purposes” of
aircraft carriers in China’s handling both traditional and non-traditional
threats and crises.117 For them, the “growing discretionary right and
power” of the “family of democracies” to challenge the national sover-
eignty of “outlaw” countries for regime changes, democratic transitions,
or human rights protection suggest a “worrying prospect” that external
interference will become a “norm” in the international legal order.118 They
are disconcerted because such “value-oriented but coercive diplomacy”
rests on not only “credible” military threats, but also offensive actions
that “optimise” forward military presence “from and through the seas”.119
Realist-minded Chinese security analysts ring the alarm bells especially
over the post-Cold War “interventionist” outlook and strategies of the
“democratic coalition” that focus on “integrated air-land-sea operations”
in enemies’ littoral and coastal zones. In their opinion, the “intended”
lethal impact is “obvious” as those areas are often densely populated,
highly trafficked, economically vibrant, and infrastructurally equipped
for the operation of and “second strike” by enemies’ own naval forces.120
[oriental morning post], August 1, 2011, p. A22; and Tang Shubin, Lengzhan hou zhongguo
haishang weiji guanli yanjiu [China’s management of maritime crisis in the post-Cold War
era], (Shijiazhuang, China: Hebei Normal University, 2011), p. 16.
116
Yong Xingzhong, “Zhongguo de haiyang xin taidu” [China’s new attitude towards the
Seas], Nanfang Zhoumo [southern weekly], May 23, 2013, p. A3.
117
Yang Zhen, “Hangmu shidai zhongguo haiquan jianshe de sikao” [on China’s sea
power building in the era of aircraft carriers], Haiyang shijie [ocean world], No. 1 (2013),
p. 72.
118
Huang Huikang, “Dangdai guojifa de ruogan fanzhan qushi” [future directions of con-
temporary international law], Xi’an zhengzhi xueyuan xuebao [journal of Xi’an Politics
Institute of PLA] 6:4 (2013), p. 92.
119
Yang Bojiang, “Anbei ‘jiazhiguan waijiao’ xuwei er you weixian” [Abe’s “value diplo-
macy” is both hypocritical and dangerous], Liaowang xinwen zhoukan [outlook weekly], Iss.
27 (2013), p. 8.
120
Cheng Junmo, “Binhai zhandoujian: kongzhi jinhai de ‘shashoujian’” [littoral combat
ships: a trump card for controlling coastal zones], Keji ribao [science and technology daily],
September 17, 2013, p. 12; and Yang Zhen and Zhou Yunheng, “Lun haiquanlun de jinhua
ji xin shiji meiguo haijun de zhuanxing” [evolution of the sea power theory and transition of
the US navy in the 21st Century], Taipingyang xuebao [Pacific journal], Iss. 12 (2010),
p. 86.
238 X. CHEN
Hawkish Chinese opinion leaders believe that the “superb speed, pre-
cision, and networked information” of the US-led joint naval forces in
supporting shore bombardment and in engaging targets thousands kilo-
metres inland of enemy territory, as demonstrated in their recent interven-
tion operations, will “incapacitate” any “Great Wall” that China may build
on or close to its shores.121 To guard itself against “decapitation assaults
from the sea”, China should instead increase the depth of its defence by
“pushing the military theatre of operation beyond the First Island Chain
and on to the high seas”. The execution of this vision means building
more aircraft carriers.122
In promoting their “blue-water offensive defence” strategy, realist-
oriented Chinese brush off the sceptical notion of their more moder-
ate counterparts that the arrival of precision-guided long range missiles
has “obsoleted” aircraft carriers and even reduced them to “floating
tombs”.123 They recount recent “internationalised local wars” to sub-
stantiate their contention that an aircraft carrier in modern warfare is not
merely a battleship, but a “field-tested”, “globally mobile”, “comprehen-
sive” combat platform that is the core of “offensive operational forma-
tions permeated by technology”.124 In other words, the aircraft carrier is
not a “sitting duck” in a “punitive” mission, but typically leads the initial
“lethal” aerial attacks on enemy installations and infrastructure ashore,
offering “asymmetrical advantages” to the warring party equipped with
it.125 Thus, while aircraft carriers have shown “serious limitations since day
one”, destroying them—especially the “carrier strike groups” that they
121
Hu Bo, “Haiyang qiangguo zhi lu san da zhanlue mubiao” [three strategic goals for the
path leading to a powerful country], Shijie zhishi [world affairs], Iss. 9 (2013), p. 29; and Li
Wanshun, “Binhai zuozhan polang erlai” [littoral warfare: from proposal to reality],
Jiefangjun bao [liberation army daily], April 18, 2013, p. 12.
122
Yang Zhen and Du Binwei, “Jiyu haiquan shijiao: hangkongmujian dui zhongguo hai-
jun zhuanxing de tuidong zuoyong” [sea power: the promoting role of aircraft carriers in
transforming China’s naval forces], Taipingyang xuebao [Pacific journal] 21:3 (2013), p. 76.
123
Zheng Wei and Zhu Bin, “Xinxihua shidai fuyu hangmu liangji” [information age has
granted aircraft carriers opportunities], Wenhi bao [Wenhui daily], August 1, 2013, p. 15;
and Shi Haiming et al, “Bipin hangkongmujian: ‘haishang gangtie jushou’ shixiang hefang”
[aircraft carriers rivalry: where will the “steal dinosaurs” sail], Keji ribao [science and tech-
nology daily], October 22, 2013, p. 12.
124
Zhang Wenmu, “Hangmu bai nian lu” [a centennial journey of aircraft carriers], Bingqi
zhishi [ordnance knowledge], No. 8 (2011), p. 23.
125
Zhang Jiaqi, “Taiwan daodanjian haocheng neng da hangmu” [Taiwan declares its mis-
sile ships can destroy aircraft carriers], Huanqiu shibao [global times], 19 April 2011, p. 8.
flagship—necessitates, on top of anti-ship missiles, “matching” overall

military capabilities on the opposition side.126
At any rate, reason security-hawkish Chinese, the “antiquated-steel-
dinosaurs” categorisation should not apply to China, given that it remains
“the only Permanent Member of the UN Security Council without an
aircraft carrier in active service”.127 They think aircraft carriers will, on the
contrary, “rectify China’s military defects” by integrating its various sea-
based combat platforms, completing its naval strike chains, and extending
its strategic buffer zone further into the Pacific and Indian Oceans.128 All
that, together with its “economic attractiveness”, should “better enable”
China to practise its traditional art of war, which is “to subdue the enemy
without fighting”.129 Furthermore, given that an aircraft carrier is a “super
complex” of state-of-the-art technologies and engineering, its develop-
ment should generate “positive, economy-wide spillover effects” on inno-
vation and production value chains in China.130 Finally, at the political/
diplomatic level, aircraft carriers will “allow China to participate more
actively in international campaigns against terrorism, disaster relief efforts
and rescue operations at sea”, fulfilling a big country’s obligations.131
Greater ability in “delivering international security public goods” should
126
Yang Zhen and Du Binwei, “Jiyu haiquan shijiao,” pp. 72–3.
127
Xu Qi, “Hangmu rulie kaiqi lanse zhengcheng” [aircraft carrier joining the ranks to
begin China’s blue journey], Liaowang [outlook weekly], Iss. 40–41 (2012), p. 8.
128
Zhang Jiangang, “2030 zhongguo jiang yuan Haiyang qiangguo meng” [China will
realise its dream of becoming a sea power in 2030], Huanqiu shibao [global times], January
10, 2013, p. 14; Huang Yingying, “Luo Yuan: Haiyang zhanlue yao ‘san xian liu cunzai’”
[three Luo Yuan talks about maritime strategy: “three tiers and six presents”], Guoji xianqu
daobao [international herald leader], December 28, 2012, p. 20; and Ma Yao, “Luelun hang-
kongmujian dui zhongguo haijun de jiazhi” [the value of aircraft carriers for China’s navy],
Xin bao [Hong Kong economic journal], August 8, 2011, accessible at http://blog.sina.
com.cn/s/blog_860aee460100vwhl.html.
129
Feng Hongping, “Haijun shaojiang Zhang Zhongzhao jiemi hangmu” [Rear Admiral
Zhang Zhongzho deciphering aircraft carrier], Baokan huicui [good press assembly], Iss. 12
(2012), p. 62.
130
Wang Yipeng, “‘Liaoning hao’ beihou de hangmu chanyelian” [carrier Liaoning and
underlying industrial value chains], Qingnian shang liu bao [youth business weekly],
September 28, 2012, p. 8; and Feng Chunmei, “Wu wen zhongguo hangmu” [five questions
about China’s aircraft carrier], People’s Daily, July 28, 2011, p. 5.
131
Lui Desheng, “Zhongguo jundui yongyou hangmu shi shijie heping liliang de zenq-
iang” [equipping Chinese military with an aircraft carrier adds to the force for world peace],
Jiefangjun bao [liberation army daily], September 26, 2012, p. 5.
240 X. CHEN
also mean a “more decisive say” in the world for China, particularly on
issues of consequence for its interests and well-being.132
Whether or not persuaded by these realist arguments, 90% of over
one million Chinese who participated in the online survey on “Top 10
Hot Issues” run by www.people.com.cn of the People’s Daily in February
2013, thought China’s increase of military spending “reasonable”, and
close to 50% hoped to see more Chinese aircraft carriers built, in particular
nuclear-powered ones.133 Yet hawkish Chinese maritime advocates both in
and outside the military do not seem carried away by the increasing public
interest in growing China’s sea power. Taking both to print and online
media they sound the cautious note that even when furnished with aircraft
carriers, the Chinese navy will remain a “regional force”.134 They also con-
tinue qualifying the sea power that they champion for China as “limited”
and “unhegemonic”, the strategic orientation of which is supposed to be
upheld even amid the current maritime confidence crisis in Asia.135
Crisis Management: Through Diplomatic

Manoeuvres?
The proposition of “limited sea power” is, however, bluntly dismissed by
liberal-minded Chinese political analysts to be “holding no water” because
of the “very global-reaching nature and imposition capability” of sea pow-
er.136 They further argue that while perhaps desirable for boosting China’s
132
Peng Guangqian, “Zhiyue zhangzheng de zhongguo haishang liliang” [China’s sea
power to help limit war], Liaowang [outlook weekly], Iss. 31 (2011), p. 27.
133
Yang Wenyan, “Jiucheng wangmin renwei woguo junfei zhengzhang bijiao heli” [90%
of Chinese netizens think China’s increase of military spending reasonable], February 28,
2013, published at http://fujian.people.com.cn/GB/n/2013/0228/c349902-18229525.
html.
134
Li Jie, “Jianshe Haiyang qiangguo yao fazhan haishang liliang” [to become a sea power
needs maritime build-up], Zhongguo haiyang bao [China ocean news], November 18, 2013,
p. 1; and Luo Zheng, “Zhongguo he qianting jiemi de beihou” [why China unveiled its
nuclear submarines], Jiefangjun bao [liberation army daily], November 6, 2013, p. 3.
135
Gao Xinsheng, “Da haifang zhanlue cujin xin haiyang zhixu jianli” [a comprehensive
maritime strategy helps bring forth new maritime order], Zhongguo shehui kexue bao [Chinese
social sciences today], November 13, 2013, p. B5; and Guo Yuandan, “Yuanhai jidong
zuozhan nengli zheng tisheng” [Chinese navy’s mobile military operational capabilities at
high seas are improving], Fazhi wanbao [legal evening news], October 28, 2013, p. A19.
136
Wu Zhengyu, “Haiquan yu lu hai fuhe xing qiangguo” [sea power and a land/sea
hybrid power], Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi [world economics and politics], Iss. 2 (2012), p. 44.
self-esteem as a major player in world affairs, “limited” sea power will be of

“little importance” to the safety of the Chinese “ocean lifeline” in a dan-
gerous encounter with a great sea power.137 Yet no matter how “limited”,
the growth of a large, rising country’s sea power “will expectedly evoke
strong suspicion, anguish, and countervailing responses from established
powers and its smaller neighbouring countries”. One likely consequence,
if the responses are not managed properly, will be a “worsening security
dilemma”, or a vicious cycle of insecurity for and “skewed” resource allo-
cation in the “catching-up” state.138
Moderate Chinese commentators maintain that this scenario will be
especially “challenging” for China, given that as a “geographically hybrid”
country, it is already “burdened” with the “strategic-choice dilemma
between land and sea”, the corollary risk of “disproportionate” emphasis
on one or the other, and resultant danger of “inadequacy and vulner-
ability on both fronts”.139 More importantly, the post-Cold War global
and regional geopolitical evolution has in any case already “doomed to
futility” any aspiration for China to fashion the identity of a great sea
power. In other words, “globalisation”, however uneven it may be, has
“retired” the Mahanian maritime vision and strategy, and hence essentially
“ruled out” China’s chance to “reproduce the glory” of its great armada
led by Admiral Zheng He in the fifteenth century, or the “nautical domi-
nance” enjoyed by the British Empire before and the USA now.140 China
should thus “think twice” about chasing navy-based sea power, and focus
more on pursuing “maritime rights and interests” that are subject to its
sovereignty.141
137
Yang Zhen, Lun hou lengzhan shidai de haiquan, pp. 169–70.
138
Xu Qiyu, “Deguo jueqi de zhanlue kongjian,” p. 61.
139
Liu Zhongmin, “Zhongguo Haiyang qiangguo jianshe de haiquan zhanlue xuanze:
haiquan yu daguo xingshuai de jingyan jiaoxun jiqi qishi” [China’s maritime strategic choice
for building itself into a sea power], Taipingyang xuebao [Pacific journal], No. 8 (2013),
p. 77.
140
Hu Bo, “Zhongguo xuanze quan xin de hai shang jueqi zhi lu” [China adopts a brand
new path to sea power], Zhongguo jingji zhoukan [China economic weekly], Iss. 31 (2013),
p. 18.
141
Peng Nian, “Luquan haishi jichu: zhongguo de zhanlue jueze” [land power and China’s
strategic choice], China Review News, August 30, 2012, accessible at http://hk.crntt.com/
doc/1022/1/0/8/102210875.html; and Mao Jikang, “Zhongguo haiquan fazhan yu ying
tai liang yang zhanlue” [China’s sea power development and Indo-Pacific two-ocean strat-
egy], 2012 dongtai [2012 Indian Ocean perspectives], Iss. 12 (2012), p. 18.
242 X. CHEN
Attempting to broaden the public horizons of maritime security, mod-

erate Chinese opinion leaders also face squarely the “growing trend of
idolising aircraft carriers” in China’s social media as a “totem” of national
vitality and international status. They engage both digital and conventional
discussion channels to amplify their prudent message that all weapon/
equipment systems have “limitations”, and that it is “dangerous” to rest
China’s “security and destiny” on any one type of armaments, regardless of
its sophistication level.142 Moreover, they openly question the “cost effec-
tiveness” of building, operating, and maintaining aircraft carriers in meet-
ing China’s national security needs.143 Drawing on the principle of “Loss
of Strength Gradient”, they speak volubly about the “crippling distance
decay effect” on the capability of aircraft carriers to project China’s sea
power. Simply put, the further away an organised armed force is from its
base, the weaker its operational impact becomes; and the wider a nation’s
military power is geographically stretched, the more meagre is its sub-
stance. Dovish Chinese national security analysts state bluntly that “not
even the United States, with its unmatchable ocean-going navy, strategic
air power, and world-wide military alliances, bases and troop deployments,
has fully broken the spell, let alone China”.144
Liberal-minded Chinese analysts take pains to explain to the public
that a “comprehensive”, rights- and responsibility-driven sea power, once
acquired, will in all likelihood transform China into a global marine “eco-
nomic” and “political” player with a “better” potential of using “all the
world’s oceans and seas for non-military purposes”.145 In today’s world
order, however, such articulated “modern” sea power will “by no means”
be obtained through “Mahanian naval warfare”, but through capital invest-
ment, institutional innovations, marine economic and scientific develop-
ment, and international laws and regulations.146 Moderate Chinese security
142
Chen Liangfei and Wang Xiangsui, “Zhongguo de anquan zhanlue yinggai shi yi lu
xiang hai, hail u junheng” [China’s security strategy should lean on land and face the sea, and
balance the two], Dongfang zaobao [oriental morning post], August 1, 2011, p. A20.
143
Ma Dingsheng, “Xiao guniang kai hanma: bu xiangcheng” [a young girl driving a
Hummer: an ill match], Yangcheng wanbao [yangcheng evening news], April 24, 2011, p.
A2.
144
Hu Bo, Zhongguo haiquan ce – waijiao, haiyang jingji ji haishang liliang [China’s sea
power strategy – diplomacy, marine economy and naval force], (Beijing: Xinhua Press,
2012), p. 79.
145
Hu Bo, “Zhongguo xuanze quan xin de hai shang jueqi zhi lu,” pp. 18–9.
146
Yang Zhen, Lun hou lengzhan shidai de haiquan, p. 212.
pundits further elaborate that to be “effective” in protecting its maritime

rights and accomplish its aspired “peaceful rise”, China has specifically
to “complement” its growing sea control capacity with a “demonstrated
commitment to fairness, reason, constraint, and compliance with interna-
tional norms and obligations”.147 Their reason lies in the “fact” that mari-
time security tensions and crises in the post-Cold War world, while still
arising primarily among sovereign nation states, are largely “non-violent
rivalries”. It follows that “successful” crisis management involves mainly
“situation control, tension alleviation, and prevention of conflict escala-
tion” rather than a “final” settlement.148
By defining inter-state maritime competition and disputes as “political/
diplomatic” issues, liberal Chinese security experts make a good case for
China’s resorting more vigorously to international legal and institutional
instruments when involved in or responding to a crisis in the sea. They
spare no opportunities for public deliberation to point out the “obvious”
that territorial and sovereignty issues typically have “assorted legal dimen-
sions”, and effectual expressions of such concerns are always “rich in tech-
nical substances”. They push to persuade an audience that the post-Cold
War maritime order “increasingly favours countries well-versed in mech-
anisms of international laws and conventions, and capable of providing
their rights claims or renunciations with sound legal bases”.149 They specif-
ically urge for greater public awareness of and appreciation for the United
Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. They stand firm against the
bubbling cynicism in China towards the practical and arbitrational effi-
cacy of the Convention, acclaiming the treaty for its “game-changing”
conceptual framework that “not only transcends the Mahanian focus on
naval prowess, but also integrates rule- and impact-based accountability
systems to front up socio-political and environmental costs of sea-power
operations”.150
147
Liu Zhongmin, “Zhongguo Haiyang qiangguo jianshe,” p. 82.
148
Zhang Tuosheng, “Zhongguo guoji junshi anquan weiji xingwei yanjiu” [on China’s
behaviour in dealing with international military security crises], Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi
[world economics and politics], Iss. 4 (2011), p. 105.
149
Song Jie, “Falui shijiao xia de ‘nanhai zhengduan’: hanyi yu jiejue de jishu xing jianyi”
[“South China Sea disputes” in legal perspectives: definition and resolution at the technical
level], Dangdai faxue [contemporary law review], Iss. 4 (2012), p. 12.
150
Shen Dingli, “Quanmian renshi dangqian de zhongguo guojia anquan huanjing” [over-
all review of China’s national security environment], Tansuo yu zhengming [exploration and
free views], Iss. 4 (2011), p. 6; and Kong Zhiguo, “Yige gongyue yinfa de zhongguo haiquan
244 X. CHEN
Many moderate Chinese policy elites do, however, acknowledge as

“legitimate” the popular belief that the treaty is the result of contentions
and compromises among signature nations in “unequal power relations”
and at “different development stages”, and hence its provisions are often
“biased”, “ambiguous”, “controversial”, and “subject to interpretation”.
They also agree that these issues, together with the Convention’s many
“open-ended” implementation procedures, have reduced some of its arti-
cles themselves to “predisposing causes” of maritime disputes, tensions,
and confrontations.151 Yet they quickly remind the Chinese public that the
Convention and related agreements are “not static but dynamic and evolv-
ing”. More importantly, it is exactly their “perpetual work-in-progress sta-
tus” that allows for China’s gradual “adaptation” to multilateral maritime
institutions and mechanisms, first as an “outcast”, then an “onlooker”
and eventually a “stakeholder”.152 By the same token, argue moderate
Chinese security strategists, “limitations” and “flaws” of the Convention
have left doors wide open for China to participate in the “discursive con-
struction and reconstruction” of international maritime rules, norms, and
standards.153
Those in China’s moderate camp make a further effort to caution
the Chinese public not to lose sight of an “essential feature” of the
post-Cold War world order when discussing the pros and cons of the
Convention. The feature is that established powers are increasingly
inclined to accept “coordination” of signature states’ interactions in
and with multilateral institutions as a key approach to and component
weiji” [a Convention and China’s sea power crisis], Zhujiang shuiyun [Pearl River transport],
No. 72 (2011), p. 25.
151
Ma Yao “Zhong mei junjian fei hai geqian fei ouran” [Chinese and US battleships
stranded in the Sea of the Philippines: not accidental], Xin bao [Hong Kong economic jour-
nal], April 6, 2013, accessible at http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_860aee460101dawn.
html; and Liu Zhongmin, “Guoji Haiyang xingshi biange Beijing xia de zhongguo Haiyang
anquan zhanlue: yizhong kuangjia xing de yanjiu” [changes in international maritime safety
situation and China’s maritime security strategy: a structural analysis], Guoji guancha [inter-
national review], Iss. 3 (2011), pp. 2–3.
152
Jiao Shixin “Zhongguo rongru guoji jizhi de lishi jincheng yu neiwai dongle” [China’s
integration into international institutions: historical progress and internal/external driving
forces], Guoji guanxi yanjiu [journal of international relations], Iss. 1 (2013), p. 102.
153
Yang Zewei, “Lun haiyangfa gongyue jiejue nanhai zhengduan de fei shiyong xing”
[limitations of the Convention on the Law of the Sea in arbitrating the South China Sea dis-
putes], Faxue zazhi [law science magazine], Iss. 10 (2012), pp. 7–8.
of international security governance and crisis management.154 Against

this backdrop, the issue for China is not “whether” but “how” to
stay engaged in the ever more “coordinated”, and indeed sometimes
“inequitably restrictive”, deliberation processes of existing multilateral
maritime security mechanisms. The answer, as perceived by Chinese
liberals, is that China needs to be more “flexible” in its strategic and
diplomatic stance on “negotiated” codes of conduct and procedural
regulations, and strike a “realistic balance” between sovereignty pro-
tection and regional stability.155 By “flexible” and “realistic” maritime
diplomacy, Chinese moderates mean that China should first of all not
apply its ideological principles or moral standards “rigidly” in its crisis
management attempts in Asia’s troubled waters. For them, China has
every reason to be concerned that “clinging” to its value judgements in
a politically, economically, socially, and culturally diverse region will not
just hamper its potential to become a “major player” in the “negotiated
coordination” of maritime security initiatives, but also “invite hostility
from all sides”.156
Along the same lines, they also argue sharply against “overinterpreting”
the US naval presence in the seas around China and “overstating” rivalries
and confrontations between Chinese and American sea power in Asia.157
They encourage the Chinese public to “face up the reality that second
largest as China’s economy may be, it trails far behind and has no ability to
constrain the largest in any meaningful way”. Yet as long as the USA does
“not take sides” over Asia’s maritime boundary and resource disputes, its
strategic and military existence “should be expected to positively contrib-
ute to the geopolitical equilibrium in the region and the safety of the sea
lanes in the Pacific”. A “smart and rational choice of action” for China
in this context is to increase its “strategic importance and indispensabil-
154
Zheng Xianwu, “Dongya ‘daguo xietiao’: goujian jichu yu lujing xuanze” [East Asian
“coordination among major powers”: foundation building and pathways selection], Shijie
jingji yu zhengzhi [world economics and politics], Iss. 5 (2013), p. 91; and Sun Xingjie,
“Zhongguo haiquan fazhan de xin qidian” [new starting point for China’s sea power],
Qingnian cankao [youth reference], March 13, 2013, p. 2.
155
Liu Zhongmin, “Zhongguo Haiyang qiangguo jianshe,” p. 80; and Zhang Xuegang,
“China’s Maritime Security and Its Choices”, Contemporary International Relations, Iss. 5
(2012), p. 57.
156
Chu Xiaobo, “Dangqian zhong ri guanxi yu waijiao weiji guanli” [current Sino-Japan
relations and diplomatic crisis management], Dongbeiya xuekan [journal of Northeast Asia
studies], Iss. 4 (2013), p. 26.
157
Liu Zhongmin “Zhongmei guanxi zhong de haiquan wenti,” p. A11.
246 X. CHEN
ity” by taking on more regional and global “responsibilities” and building

more “shared interests” with the USA. In other words, “in-need-of-each-
other plus scruples” may be the most effective recipe available for “stable”
relations between established and rising powers.158
There does not seem much room for “flexibility” in the China-Japan
island dispute, though. Moderate opinion leaders have to work patiently
and delicately to catch the public debate and persuade the Chinese to
“keep cool”. They repeatedly stress, for example, that the bilateral rela-
tionship of the two countries is “extremely complex” as it falls between
both two great powers and two neighbours, features both the East-West
and South-North divides, has a history of both confrontation and con-
ciliation, and is experiencing both fierce rivalry and ever more interde-
pendence.159 Moderate opinion leaders also make every endeavour to
point out that while the traditionally strained relations between the two
nations are rapidly deteriorating further, “China has few mechanisms to
exert influence on Japan”, in spite of its public nationalistic sentiment
and protests. Beijing in actuality needs to “bet on the United States to
pressure Tokyo to stand down”. Yet the USA would do so only when its
own interests are threatened by an escalation of the Sino-Japan tension.
As a result, China will be locked in a “limited” or “quasi” Cold War with
Japan for a long time.160 Moderate security analysts nevertheless assure the
Chinese public that “cold confrontation is not necessarily a bad thing for
China” as it allows both countries time to reflect, for diplomatic solutions
to develop, and, more importantly, for China to continue with its mod-
ernisation process. For moderate Chinese, the bottom line here is that
China is simply unable to simultaneously finance a growth agenda and a
“hot war”. Nor has it the certainty to win a “hot war” with Japan even
if it devotes all its military resources to that single contingency. To rise
“peacefully”, China should thus not let “emotional reactions” overwhelm
158
Zheng Yongnian, “Nanhai, Nanhai” [South China Sea], Fazhi zhoumo [legal weekly],
January 24, 2013c, accessible at http://www.legalweekly.cn/index.php/Index/Category/
catid/24/id/52.
159
Jiang Yuechun, “Riben ‘guo dao’ de zhuyao beijing ji zhong ri guanxi qianjing”
[Japan’s “island purchase” and prospects of Sino-Japan relations], Zhongri guanxi shi yanjiu
[historical studies in Sino-Japan relations], Iss. 1 (2013), p. 8.
160
Zheng Yongnian, “Dongya hui zouxiang yichang ‘zhun lengzhan’ma?” [Will East Asia
move towards a “quasi-Cold War?], Lianhe zaobao [united morning news], February 4,
2014, p. 11.
rational responses”, but try to outmanoeuvre its contender through

“
“crafty diplomacy” and “competent applications of international laws”.161
By contrast, moderate Chinese security gurus maintain that Southeast
Asian claimant countries warrant not only Beijing’s diplomatic “sensitiv-
ity” and “empathy”, but also a “flexible” approach to maritime tensions
with them and that this will go a long way towards China’s aspired “peace-
ful rise/development”. Their reason is simple: if China could not even rise
peacefully among the small countries in its immediate neighbourhood,
what kind of chance it has to do so in the international community?162
Some of the moderate commentators specifically appeal for China to
adopt a more considerate approach to its age-old maritime disputes with
the small neighbours and use its pragmatic creativity to “reconcile” its
ASEAN and South China Sea strategies. They bluntly note that by “sepa-
rating” the two strategic agendas and by insisting on “multilateralism” for
the former and “bilateralism” for the latter, China’s “carrots are not sweet
enough, and its sticks are too soft” to incentivise littoral Southeast Asian
countries to sit down at a negotiating table with Beijing.163
Moderate Chinese analysts insist that making breakthroughs in func-
tional cooperation in the region requires China to appreciate more fully
the “natural tendency among smaller countries to avoid facing up to large
nations in a one-on-one situation”, which explains the “insistence” of
Southeast Asian littoral states on bringing their respective maritime dis-
putes with their giant neighbour under the ASEAN framework.164 The
Chinese commentators also acutely question if it is wise for Beijing to
earmark its claimed islands and surrounding waters in the South China Sea
for the category of “non-negotiable core national interests”. They wonder
aloud daringly if Beijing should loosen this position and allow room for
negotiations on territorial claims, especially in cases where “its maritime-
domain configurations have China’s boundary line right on the doorsteps
161
Hu Bo, “Zhong ri caqiangzouhuo kenengxing henxiao” [an accidental military clash
between China and Japan is highly unlikely], Dongfang zaobao [oriental morning post],
January 18, 2013c, p. 18.
162
Zheng Yongnian, “Nan zhongguohai wenti yu zhongguo yaxian guanxi” [the South
China Sea issue and China’s relations with ASEAN], Lianhe zaobao [united morning news],
August 16, 2011, Section 1, p. 10.
163
Zheng Yongnian, “Bianjiang, diyuanzhengzhi he zhongguo de guoji guanxi yanjiu”
[borders, geopolitics and China’s research on international relations], Waijiao pinglun [for-
eign affairs review], Iss. 6 (2011), p. 19.
164
Zheng Yongnian, “Nanhai, Nanhai.”
248 X. CHEN
of some competing claimant states’ 12-nautical-mile zones”.165 The mes-

sage that the moderate Chinese opinion leaders try to pound home here
is: if China wants to negotiate its way out of the stalemates and hostilities
in the South China Sea and prevent them from escalating into a crisis
with ASEAN, it may have to first acknowledge that the littoral members
of the Association, too, have legitimate national security and economic
interests in the region. In other words, to become a powerful but “fair”,
“sensible” and “responsible” stakeholder in shaping the maritime agenda
for the region, China will have to learn to stand in the shoes of its smaller
neighbours and address their “reasonable” concerns in its geostrategic
deliberations.166
Conclusion
China and the other competing claimants to sovereign jurisdiction in
Asian waters are all participants and beneficiaries of regional economic
integration and cooperation. At the same time, however, their conten-
tious border disputes are among the foremost challenges to the region’s
stability. Tensions among neighbouring countries in the East and South
China Seas highlight the sombre reality that while the “economic Asia”
maintains its forward momentum towards regionalisation, the “security
Asia” is stalled by, among other things, its littoral members’ unilateral, and
often non-negotiable, maritime assertions and aggressions.
It is widely recognised in China that the post-Cold War order with two
“parallel Asias” has helped consolidate America’s “political authority” as
the “peace keeper” of the region. Conversely, America’s “pivot” to Asia
and the heightened Sino-US strategic competition are seen to have also
granted smaller littoral countries in the region more bargaining power in
their dealings with the two super-sized nations.167 Yet many in China, while
annoyed, seem willing to take their maritime neighbours’ policy shift from
165
Liu Gonghu, “Jinglue haiyang,” p. 17.
166
Zhou Xinyu, “21 shiji xuyao shenmeyang de Haiyang zhanlue” [what kind of maritime
strategy is needed in the 21 Century], Beijing ribao [Beijing daily], April 15, 2014, p. 20;
Zhang Guangzhao and Chen Zhinkai, “Xi Jinping: neizheng waijiao xin xilu” [Xi Jinping:
new concepts for domestic and foreign affairs], People’s Daily (Overseas Edition), April 5,
2013, p. 1.
167
Zhu Feng, “Zhong mei zhanlue yu dongya anquan zhixu de weilai” [Sino-America
strategy and prospects of East Asian security order], Shijie jingji yu zhengzhi [world econom-
ics and politics], Iss. 3 (2013), p. 18.
“not taking sides” to “riding on the growing Chinese economy, but rely-
ing on the United States for security needs” as “consumer behaviour” for
utility maximisation. They are nevertheless seriously concerned about the
impact of the smaller rivals’ “hedging bets between China and America”
on maritime security politics in East Asia in general, and Sino-US strategic
interactions in particular.168
Chinese in both the hawkish and moderate camps agree that in
order for China to manage the America factor in Asia’s security dynam-
ics and defuse challenges arising from its immediate neighbourhood to
its maritime strategy and interests in the Western Pacific and adjacent
waters, it needs to balance its regional economic power with matching
magnitude of political sway. Yet they do not have a consensus about
the way China might establish a more resolute political presence in and
boost its critical influence over the evolving regional security system.
Similarly, few in China argue against the common-sense insight that a
country’s regional and global strategic competitiveness and political
prestige and attraction are built on force and diplomacy. Yet percep-
tions in China vary on the order of importance of these two essentials
in enabling Beijing to build a more consensual space for its maritime
agenda in Asia.
Underlying the diversity and passions of opinion is the continued
controversy over how China should fit into the post-Cold War Asia and
world, or whether it should ascend to a “great nation” or “great power”.
If the conventional wisdom that the foreign policy of a country is the
extension of its domestic politics rules, Beijing is by no means ready to
completely redefine the status quo in Asia’s disputed waters. With the
“China threat” and “threat to China” debate still going strong among
the Chinese themselves, Beijing’s role in maritime disputes in the region
should be expected to remain ad hoc and reactive. Meanwhile, its recent
more assertive responses to the renewed tensions in the East and South
China Seas are probably meant to demonstrate its resolve to “defend
every inch of the territory” in order to keep both domestic hawkish/
nationalistic emotions and regional maritime boundary crises from esca-
lating out of control.
168
Yu Xintian, “Meiguo duichong zhengce de xin tedian yu zhongguo de duice” [new
features of the US hedging policy and China’s response], Guoji wenti yanjiu [international
studies], Iss. 5 (2012), p. 63.
Index1
A ASEAN Declaration on Transnational

Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), 113, 114 Crime, 88
Aegis Defence Services, 82 ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting,
AIS. See Automatic Identification 35
System (AIS) ASEAN Maritime Forum, 35
Al Qaeda, 69, 194 ASEAN Navies Interaction, 196
anak raja, 12, 21 ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), 21,
Andaman Sea, 147, 148, 150, 155, 55n51, 61, 75, 88, 88n10,
161, 177, 191, 192 99n58, 133, 142
Anglo-Dutch treaty, 18 ASG. See Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)
APEC. See Asia-Pacific Economic Asian Financial Crisis, 150, 162, 193,
Cooperation (APEC) 197, 198
ARF. See ASEAN Regional Forum Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(ARF) (APEC), 61, 75, 151n22, 227
ASEAN. See Association of Southeast Association of Southeast Asian Nations
Asian Nations (ASEAN) (ASEAN), 20, 32, 35, 36, 61, 70,
ASEAN+3, 101 75, 88, 105, 111, 131, 199, 227,
ASEAN Centre on Transnational 228, 232, 247, 248
Crime, 88 Automatic Identification System (AIS),
ASEAN Chiefs of Police Conference, 35 30, 90, 93
1
Note: Page numbers followed by “n” denote notes.

Southeast Asia, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-2588-4
252 INDEX
B D
BAKORKAMLA. See National Dayak, 15
Coordination Board for Sea Declaration of ASEAN Concord II,
Security (BAKORKAMLA) 196
Balangingi, 10, 11 decline theory, 14
Bay of Bengal, 150 Differential Global Navigational
British Admiralty, 15 Satellite System, 30
Brooke Commission of Enquiry, 18 Djibouti Code of Conduct, 140
Bugis, 16
E
C East Asia Summit, 227
civil society, 115, 118, 120, 121 East China Sea, 136, 228
CLCS. See Commission on the EEZ. See exclusive economic zone
Limitation of Continental Shelf (EEZ)
(CLCS) EiS. See Eyes in the Sky (EiS)
CMF. See Combined Maritime Forces Eurasian continent, 127
(CMF) exclusive economic zone (EEZ), 29,
Cobra Gold naval exercise, 184 58n74, 96, 107, 112, 127, 131,
Cold War/post-Cold War, 1, 5, 63, 134, 135, 160, 162, 182, 191,
125–44, 181, 191, 198, 212–14, 192, 219, 226
216, 228, 232, 235, 237, 241, Eyes in the Sky (EiS), 19, 34, 35, 40,
243, 244, 246, 248, 249 41, 58, 59, 80, 82, 84, 89, 150
Combined Maritime Forces (CMF),
157, 202, 204
Combined Task Force 151, 157, 204 F
Commission on the Limitation of Five Power Defence Arrangement
Continental Shelf (CLCS), 134, (FPDA), 21, 61
136n20 Fukuda Doctrine, 130
confidence building measure (CBM), 142
Container Security Initiative (CSI),
103, 149, 195 G
Convention for the Suppression of Global War on Terrorism, 195, 198
Unlawful Acts against the Safety Gulf of Aden, 28, 157, 202, 211
of Maritime Navigation (SUA), Gulf of Thailand, 147, 148, 155, 161,
20, 55, 59, 68, 71, 80, 84, 99 168, 176, 177, 181, 182, 186,
Cooperation and Readiness Afloat 191, 192
(CARAT), 27 Gulf of Tonkin, 16
cooperative mechanism, 37, 105, 106
Copenhagen School of Security
Studies, 45, 83 H
copyright, 8 HNS Response Centers, 37
INDEX 253
Hobbes/Hobbesian, 5, 209–18, 223, ISCP. See Indonesia-Singapore

235 Coordinated Patrols (ISCP)
human and ecological security, 110, ISPS Code. See International Ship and
115–18 Port Facility Security Code (ISPS
Human Development Network, 116 Code)
Human Development Report (HDR), IWC. See International Whaling
115, 115n20, 116, 117 Commission (IWC)
I J
IMB-PRC. See International Maritime Japan Association of Marine Safety,
Bureau-Piracy Reporting Centre 36
(IMB-PRC) Japanese Shipowners Association, 36
IMDEX. See International Maritime Jemaah Islamiah/Jemaah Islamiyah
Defence Exhibition and (JI), 69, 74, 87, 113, 195
Conference (IMDEX) Johore empire/region, 13, 14
IMO. See International Maritime Johor Straits, 47
Organisation (IMO) Joint War Committee (JWC) of
Indian Ocean, 24, 44, 129, 130, 132, Lloyd’s Market Association, 81,
138, 141, 202, 229, 230, 239 82, 103, 103n71
Indonesia-Singapore Coordinated
Patrols (ISCP), 56, 59
Intelligence Exchange Group (IEG), K
35, 59 Kant/Kantian, 212, 217, 234–6
International Maritime Bureau-Piracy
Reporting Centre (IMB-PRC),
54, 147, 147n9, 158, 159, L
159n60 land power, 217–25
International Maritime Defence Lloyd’s Market Association, 71, 103
Exhibition and Conference Locke/Lockean, 209–17, 236
(IMDEX), 72, 72n146, 74
International Maritime Organisation
(IMO), 36, 37, 48, 49, 51–3, M
53n43, 53n44, 54, 54n46, 55, Malacca Straits, 3–5, 24, 25, 29, 32,
61, 70, 75, 88–90, 90n17, 34, 38, 39, 41, 44n3, 45–7, 49,
90n19, 103–5, 157, 202 50, 57, 69, 74, 82, 111, 130,
International Ship and Port Facility 138–41, 150, 178, 211
Security Code (ISPS Code), 61, Malacca Straits Coordinated Patrol
71, 90, 103, 105 (MALSINDO), 57, 89, 149
International Whaling Commission Malacca Straits Council (MSC), 36
(IWC), 128 Malacca Straits Patrol (MSP), 34, 35,
Iranun, 10–12, 14 59n79, 149
254 INDEX
Malacca Straits Sea Patrol (MSSP), 34, P

35, 58, 59, 80, 81 Pacific Ocean, 138
Malaysia Maritime Enforcement piracy/pirate, 2–5, 7–21, 25, 27, 30,
Agency (MMEA), 29, 31, 32, 40, 31, 33–5, 38–41, 43–89, 93, 94,
41, 96, 97 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 105, 106,
MALSINDO. See Malacca Straits 112–15, 123, 126, 133, 139–41,
Coordinated Patrol 143, 146, 154, 157–9, 161, 177,
(MALSINDO) 190, 192, 197, 198, 219
maritime domain awareness, 27, 29, 39 Piracy Reporting Centre, 52
Maritime Institute of Malaysia, 48, Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI),
102 27, 38, 39, 54, 59, 68, 80, 138,
Maritime Operation Planning Team 142
(MOPT), 56, 59
Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre
(MRCC), 32 R
maritime security discourse, 68, 112, ReCAAP. See Regional Cooperation
122 Agreement on Combating Piracy
Middle East, 25, 129, 132 and Armed Robbery against Ships
MILF. See Moro Islamic Liberation in Asia (ReCAAP)
Front (MILF) Red Sea, 129, 140
MMEA. See Malaysia Maritime Regional Cooperation Agreement on
Enforcement Agency (MMEA) Combating Piracy and Armed
Montreux Convention, 103 Robbery against Ships in Asia
MOPT. See Maritime Operation (ReCAAP), 50n32, 54n46, 55,
Planning Team (MOPT) 59, 68, 71, 80, 84, 101, 102, 105,
Moro Islamic Liberation Front 140, 148, 149, 156, 197, 202
(MILF), 69, 113, 114, 195 Regional Maritime Security Initiative
MSC. See Malacca Straits Council (RMSI), 27, 39, 54, 59, 68, 81,
(MSC) 91, 101, 103, 139
MSP. See Malacca Straits Patrol (MSP) Riau-Lingga sultanate, 18
MSSP. See Malacca Straits Sea Patrol RMSI. See Regional Maritime Security
(MSSP) Initiative (RMSI)
N S
National Coordination Board for Sea Safety of Life at Sea Convention
Security (BAKORKAMLA), 94 (SOLAS), 61, 71, 90
SEACAT. See Southeast Asian
Cooperation against Terrorism
O (SEACAT)
Oil Spills Preparedness and Response sea lanes of communications (SLOC),
Teams, 36 2, 28, 38, 44, 70–2, 83, 214
INDEX 255
Sea of Aden, 129, 141 T

SEATO. See Southeast Asia Treaty Tay-son regime, 16
Organization (SEATO) Trengganu, 14
Shangri-La Dialogue, 74, 90–1, 105 Tripartite Technical Experts Group
Singapore straits, 2, 43–84, 86, 87, (TTEG), 33
89, 94, 157, 158, 160, 199, two-ocean, 147, 192, 230
199n330, 201
SLOC. See sea lanes of
communications (SLOC) U
SOLAS. See Safety of Life at Sea United Nations Convention on the
Convention (SOLAS) Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), 10,
South China Sea, 1, 2, 5, 24–6, 45, 26, 31, 35, 37, 39, 49, 49n26,
73, 101, 111, 112, 130–2, 134, 50n27, 62, 71, 78, 92, 103, 112,
140, 159, 211, 213, 226–34, 118, 119, 121, 160, 162, 182,
247–9 226, 243
Southeast Asia Collective Defense UN Security Council Resolution
Treaty, 176 1874, 138
Southeast Asian Cooperation against US National Defense Authorization
Terrorism (SEACAT), 27, 39 Act, 39
Southeast Asia Regional Center for
Counter-Terrorism, 40
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization V
(SEATO), 176, 184, 184n226 Viet Minh, 17
Soviet Union, 17, 63, 126, 127, 129, Voluntary Pilotage System (VPS), 33
132, 133, 175, 191
Straits of Malacca Ship Reporting
System (STRAITREP), 33, 47, W
48 Washington Treaty, 128
SUA. See Convention for the weapons of mass destruction (WMD),
Suppression of Unlawful Acts 27, 38, 59n81, 68, 138, 161, 196
against the Safety of Maritime Western Pacific, 132–4, 143, 197,
Navigation (SUA) 226, 230, 249
Suez Canal, 129 WMD. See weapons of mass
Sulu sultanate, 14 destruction (WMD)
Surface Picture (SURPIC), 89 World Trade Organization, 135

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MARITIME SECURITY

IN EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

EDITED BY NICHOLAS TARLING AND XIN CHEN

ISBN 978-981-10-2587-7 ISBN 978-981-10-2588-4 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934894

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Cover image © Worldspec / NASA / Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave imprint is published by Springer Nature

2 Maritime Security and Piracy7

3 The Straits of Malacca: Malaysia’s Threat Perception

4 Securitising Piracy and Maritime Terrorism along the

5 The Challenges of Maritime Security Cooperation in the

6 The Seas of Our Insecurity: Ordinary versus State

7 Japan’s Maritime Security: Continuity and Post-Cold War

8 Charting Thailand’s Maritime Security Policies from 1932

9 Sea Power and Maritime Disputes: China’s

K.S. Balakrishnan Department of International and Strategic Studies, University

Fig. 4.1 STRAITREP operational map of the Malacca Straits 47

Xin Chen and Nicholas Tarling

X. Chen (*) • N. Tarling

© The Author(s) 2017 1

better organised, more violent and less hesitant to launch kidnap-for-

have to sort through massive political, ideological, economic, social, eth-

Malaysia through securitising piracy and maritime terrorism along the

Maritime Security and Piracy

In Alexander McCall Smith’s novel, Love in Scotland, Domenica

© The Author(s) 2017 7

even to chocolates. Ferrero Rocher are proceeding against Montresor, the

New Zealand Herald, January 11, 2007.

1994), pp. 100–02.

There is another common point to make. “Piracy” was not applied to

a rival to their port or compel the centralisation of trade on their entrepot.

larger Government”.14 Other historians, such as Ann Reber in her Cornell

There were some constraints on them, however, found, for example,

ruler’s attempt to centralise foreign commerce at Kuta Raja was opposed

colonial or imperial rule. The legitimation might be necessary in a domes-

still remember their colonial past, the principle of sovereignty is sacrosanct

ASEAN’s Regional Forum (ARF) may, as Kwa Chong Guan suggests,

The Straits of Malacca: Malaysia’s Threat

K.S. Balakrishnan and Helena Varkkey

K.S. Balakrishnan (*) • H. Varkkey

© The Author(s) 2017 23

The Straits of Malacca: Malaysia’s Threat

East Asian economic miracle of the early 1990s, bringing manufactured

Spratly Islands are the subject of a major unresolved maritime territorial

Maritime Strategy and Malaysia’s Approach

However, the RMN is still a small force. Hence, to provide support

National Initiatives and Measures to Protect

Initiatives and Security Measures at the Regional

This resulted in the establishment of the Tripartite Technical Experts

on security in the Straits. This brought about a new mindset on security

Initiatives at the International Level and Security

undertaking environmental protection measures is already burdensome to

For example, on the recommendation of the littoral states, the IMO

needs assessment exercises to further improve on the various project pro-

the PSI will be conducted in a manner that is consistent with UNCLOS.32

designed to help countries improve maritime, riverine, border and port

where their contributions towards securing the Straits of Malacca will be

2 Maritime Security and Piracy7

Fig. 4.1 STRAITREP operational map of the Malacca Straits 47

Institutional Frameworks that Encourage Inter-